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diff --git a/27261-8.txt b/27261-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6863039 --- /dev/null +++ b/27261-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3369 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fantazius Mallare, by Ben Hecht + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fantazius Mallare + A Mysterious Oath + +Author: Ben Hecht + +Illustrator: Wallace Smith + +Release Date: November 14, 2008 [EBook #27261] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FANTAZIUS MALLARE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Wilson and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + [Autograph: To my friend Harry Ridings + Ben Hecht 2 Oct] + + + + + _Limited edition for private circulation only, consisting of two + thousand and twenty-five numbered copies. Only two thousand + copies for sale. Published September 1922._ + + No. 832. + + + PRESS OF + PRINTING + SERVICE + COMPANY + [Illustration: Printer's device] + CHICAGO + + + + + COPYRIGHT NINETEEN-TWENTY-TWO + COVICI - McGEE + Chicago + + All Rights Reserved + + + + + FANTAZIUS MALLARE + + _A Mysterious Oath_ + + + BEN HECHT + + + [Illustration: Publisher's device] + + + Drawings + WALLACE SMITH + + + _Chicago_ + COVICI - MCGEE + 1922 + + + + +Drawings + + + Opposite + Page + + First Drawing 20 + Second Drawing 42 + Third Drawing 58 + Fourth Drawing 74 + Fifth Drawing 88 + Sixth Drawing 94 + Seventh Drawing 106 + Eighth Drawing 132 + Ninth Drawing 168 + Tenth Drawing 174 + + + + +[Illustration] + + +DEDICATION + + +_This dark and wayward book is affectionately dedicated to my +enemies--to the curious ones who take fanatic pride in disliking me; to +the baffling ones who remain enthusiastically ignorant of my existence; +to the moral ones upon whom Beauty exercises a lascivious and corrupting +influence; to the moral ones who have relentlessly chased God out of +their bedrooms; to the moral ones who cringe before Nature, who flatten +themselves upon prayer rugs, who shut their eyes, stuff their ears, +bind, gag and truss themselves and offer their mutilations to the idiot +God they have invented (the Devil take them, I grow bored with laughing +at them); to the anointed ones who identify their paranoic symptoms as +virtues, who build altars upon complexes; to the anointed ones who have +slain themselves and who stagger proudly into graves (God deliver +Himself from their caress!); to the religious ones who wage bloody and +tireless wars upon all who do not share their fear of life (Ah, what is +God but a despairing refutation of Man?); to the solemn and successful +ones who gesture with courteous disdain from the depth of their +ornamental coffins (we are all cadavers but let us refrain from +congratulating each other too courteously on the fact); to the prim ones +who find their secret obscenities mirrored in every careless phrase, who +read self accusation into the word sex; to the prim ones who wince +adroitly in the hope of being mistaken for imbeciles; to the prim ones +who fornicate apologetically (the Devil can-cans in their souls); to +the cowardly ones who borrow their courage from Ideals which they +forthwith defend with their useless lives; to the cowardly ones who +adorn themselves with castrations (let this not be misunderstood); to +the reformers--the psychopathic ones who publicly and shamelessly +belabor their own unfortunate impulses; to the reformers (once +again)--the psychopathic ones trying forever to drown their own obscene +desires in ear-splitting prayers for their fellowman's welfare; to the +reformers--the Freudian dervishes who masturbate with Purity Leagues, +who achieve involved orgasms denouncing the depravities of others; to +the reformers (patience, patience) the psychopathic ones who seek to +vindicate their own sexual impotencies by padlocking the national +vagina, who find relief for constipation in forbidding their neighbors +the water closet (God forgives them, but not I); to the ostracizing +ones who hurl excommunications upon all that is not part of their +stupidity; to the ostracizing ones who fraternize only with the worms +inside their coffins (their anger is the caress incomparable); to the +pious ones who, lacking the strength to please themselves, boast +interminably to God of their weakness in denying themselves; to the +idealistic ones who, unable to confound their neighbors with their own +superiority, join causes in the hope of confounding each other with the +superiority of their betters (involved, but I am not done with them); to +the idealistic ones whose cowardice converts the suffering of others +into a mirror wherein stares wretchedly back at them a possible image of +themselves; to the idealistic ones who, frightened by this possible +image of themselves, join Movements for the triumph of Love and Justice +and the overthrow of Tyranny in the frantic hope of breaking the +mirror; to the social ones who regard belching as the sin against the +Holy Ghost, who enamel themselves with banalities, who repudiate +contemptuously the existence of their bowels (Ah, these theologians of +etiquette, these unctuous circumlocutors, a pock upon them); to the pure +ones who masquerade excitedly as eunuchs and as wives of eunuchs (they +have their excuses, of course, and who knows but the masquerade is +somewhat unnecessary); to the pedantic ones who barricade themselves +heroically behind their own belchings; to the smug ones who walk with +their noses ecstatically buried in their own rectums (I have nothing +against them, I swear); to the righteous ones who masturbate blissfully +under the blankets of their perfections; to the righteous ones who +finger each other in the choir loft (God forgive me if I ever succumb to +one of them); to the critical ones who whoremonger on Parnassus; to the +critical ones who befoul themselves in the Temples and point +embitteredly at the Gods as the sources of their own odors (I will +someday devote an entire dedication to critics); to the proud ones who +urinate against the wind (they have never wetted me and I have nothing +against them); to the cheerful ones who tirade viciously against all who +do not wear their protective smirk; to the cheerful ones who spend their +evenings bewailing my existence (the Devil pity them, not I); to the +noble ones who advertise their secrets, who crucify themselves on +bill-boards in the quest for the Nietzschean solitude; to the noble ones +who pride themselves on their stolen finery; to the flagellating ones +who go to the opera in hair shirts, who excite themselves with denials +and who fornicate only on Fast Days; to the just ones who find +compensation for their nose rings and sackcloth by hamstringing all who +refuse to put them on--all who have committed the alluring sins from +which their own cowardice fled; to the conservative ones who gnaw +elatedly upon old bones and wither with malnutrition; to the +conservative ones who snarl, yelp, whimper and grunt, who are the +parasites of death; who choke themselves with their beards; to the +timorous ones who vomit invective upon all that confuses them, who +vituperate, against all their non-existent intelligence cannot grasp; to +the martyr ones who disembowel themselves on the battlefield, who +crucify themselves upon their stupidities; to the serious ones who +mistake the sleep of their senses and the snores of their intellect for +enviable perfections; to the serious ones who suffocate gently in the +boredom they create (God alone has time to laugh at them); to the virgin +ones who tenaciously advertise their predicament; to the virgin ones who +mourn themselves, who kneel before keyholes; to the holy ones who +recommend themselves tirelessly and triumphantly to God (I have never +envied God His friends, nor He, mine perhaps); to the never clean ones +who bathe publicly in the hysterias of the mob; to the never clean ones +who pander for stupidity; to the intellectual ones who play solitaire +with platitudes, who drag their classrooms around with them; to these +and to many other abominations whom I apologize to for omitting, this +inhospitable book, celebrating the dark mirth of Fantazius Mallare, is +dedicated in the hope that their righteous eyes may never kindle with +secret lusts nor their pious lips water erotically from its reading--in +short in the hope that they may never encounter the ornamental phrases I +have written and the ritualistic lines Wallace Smith has drawn in the +pages that follow._ + + + + +MALLARE + + + + +[Illustration: First Drawing] + + + + +FANTAZIUS MALLARE + +[I] + + +Fantazius Mallare considered himself mad because he was unable to behold +in the meaningless gesturings of time, space and evolution a dramatic +little pantomime adroitly centered about the routine of his existence. +He was a silent looking man with black hair and an aquiline nose. His +eyes were lifeless because they paid no homage to the world outside him. + +When he was thirty-five years old he lived alone high above a busy part +of the town. He was a recluse. His black hair that fell in a slant +across his forehead and the rigidity of his eyes gave him the appearance +of a somnambulist. He found life unnecessary and submitted to it +without curiosity. + +His ideas were profoundly simple. The excitement of his neighborhood, +his city, his country and his world left him unmoved. He found no +diversion in interpreting them. A friend had once asked him what he +thought of democracy. This was during a great war being waged in its +behalf. Mallare replied: "Democracy is the honeymoon of stupidity." + +There lived with him as a servant a little monster whom he called +Goliath and who was a dwarfed and paralytic negro. Goliath's age was +unknown. His deformities gave him the air of an old man and his hunched +back made him seem too massive for a boy. But in studying him Mallare +had concluded that he was a boy. + +Goliath had been one of the first symptoms of Mallare's madness. He had +brought the little monster home from an amusement park one summer night. +Goliath had been standing doubled up, his pipe stem arms hanging like a +baboon's, his enlarged black head lifted and his furious eyes staring at +a Wheel of Fortune. + +When they left the confetti-electrics of the park behind, Mallare spoke +to the dwarf whose wrinkled hand he was holding. + +"If you come home with me I will make you a servant and give you a fine +red suit to wear. Also, I will call you Goliath for no reason at all, +since I am at war with reason." + +Goliath said nothing but sat staring happily out of the window of an +automobile as they rode home. + +The home of Fantazius Mallare was filled with evidences of his past. +There were clay and bronze figures and canvases covered with paintings. +These had been the work of his hands. It was to be seen that he had once +given himself with violence to the creation of images. And for this +reason he was still known among a few people as an artist. + +In the days when he had worked to create images Mallare had been alive +with derisions. He desired to give them outline. But the desire went +from him. The brilliant fancies of his thought began slowly to bore him. +The astounding images that still bowed themselves into his mind became +like a procession of mendicants seeking alms of him. He folded his hands +and with an interested smile watched his genius die. + +At the time of this curious tragedy Mallare was thirty. He kept a +Journal in which he wrote infrequently. There was in this Journal little +of interest. Apparently he had amused himself during his youth jotting +down items of preposterous unimportance. + +"I saw a man with a red face," he would write one week. The next he +would add a line, "There are seven hundred and eighty-five normal +strides between the lamp-post and my front door." Turning a page a month +later he would meticulously set down the date, the hour of the day, the +direction of the wind and under it write out, "I have a stomach ache +from eating peaches." + +The Journal bristled with innocuous informations. An acquaintance of the +period, interested in Mallare's work as an artist, smiled and commented, +"These are, no doubt, symbols. A psychological code into which you have +translated great inner moments." + +Mallare answered, "On the contrary. They are the only thoughts I have +had in which I could detect no reason. It has amused me to put down with +great care the few banalities which have normalized my days. They are +very precious to me, although they have no value in themselves. + +"It is the ability to think such absurdities as you have read that has +kept me from suicide. The will to live is no more than the hypnotism of +banalities. We keep alive only by maintaining, despite our intelligence, +an enthusiasm for things which are of no consequence or interest to us. + +"That I saw a man with a red face aroused in me a gentle curiosity +lacking in words or emotion. The desire to live is compounded of an +infinity of such gentle curiosities which remain entirely outside of +reason. This never-satisfied and almost non-existent curiosity we have +toward things, masquerades under the intimidating guise of the law of +self-preservation. Man is at the mercy of life since, his intelligence +perceiving its monotony and absurdity, he still clings to it, fascinated +by the accumulated rhythm of faces, impressions, and events which he +despises. + +"It is a form of hypnosis, and these words I have written in my Journal +are the absurdities by which life seduced me from abandoning it. I am +grateful to them and have therefore preserved them carefully." + +The history of Mallare's madness, however, is to be found in this +Journal. There are two empty pages that stare significantly. The empty +pages are a lapse. It was during this lapse that Mallare smiled with +interest at the spectacle of his disintegration. There follows, then, a +sudden excited outburst, undated. In it the beginnings of his madness +pirouette like tentative dancers. + +"Perhaps the greatest miracle is that which enables man to tolerate +life," the passage starts, "which enables him to embrace its illusions +and translate its monstrous incoherence into delightful, edifying +patterns. It is the miracle of sanity. To stand unquestioning before +mysteries, to remain an undisturbed part of chaos, ah! what an +adjustment! Content and even elate amid the terrible circle of Unknowns, +behold in this the heroic stupidity of the sane ... a stupidity which +has already outlived the Gods. + +"Man, alas, is the only animal who hasn't known enough to die. His +undeveloped senses have permitted him to survive in the manner of the +oyster. The mysteries, dangers, and delights of the sea do not exist for +the oyster. Its senses are not stirred by typhoons, impressed by +earthquakes or annoyed by its own insignificance. Similarly, man! + +"The complacent egomania of man, his tyrannical indifferences, his +little list of questions and answers which suffices for his wisdom, +these are the chief phenomena or symptoms of his sanity. He alone has +survived the ages by means of a series of ludicrous adjustments, until +today he walks on two legs--the crowning absurdity of an otherwise +logical Nature. He has triumphed by specializing in his weaknesses and +insuring their survival; by disputing the simple laws of biology with +interminable banalities labelled from age to age as religions, +philosophies and laws. + +"Unable, despite his shiftiness, to lie the fact of his mortality +and decomposition out of existence, he has satisfied his mania for +survival by the invention of souls. And so behold him--spectacle of +spectacles--a chatty little tradesman in an immemorial hat drifting +good-naturedly through a nightmare. + +"It is for this ability to exist unnaturally that he has invented the +adjective sane. But here and there in the streets of cities walk the +damned--creatures denied the miracle of sanity and who move bewilderedly +through their scene, staring at the flying days as at the fragments of +another world. They are conscious of themselves only as vacuums within +which life is continually expiring. + +"Alas, the damned! From the depths of their non-existence they +contemplate their fellowman and perceive him a dwarf prostrate forever +before solacing arrangements of words; an homunculus riding +vaingloriously on the tiny river of ink that flows between monstrous +yesterdays and monstrous tomorrows; a baboon strutting through a +mirage." + +The history of Mallare's madness begins thus. And the pages continue. +The writing on them seems at a glance part of a decoration in black and +white. The letters are beautifully formed and shaded. They resemble +laboring serpents, dainty pagodas, vines bearing strange fruits and +capricious bits of sculpture. + +To the end Mallare fancied himself aware of the drift and nuance of his +madness. Its convolutions seemed neither incomprehensible nor mysterious +to him. + +An intolerable loathing for life, an illuminated contempt for men and +women, had long ago taken possession of him. This philosophic attitude +was the product of his egoism. He felt himself the center of life and it +became his nature to revolt against all evidences of life that existed +outside himself. In this manner he grew to hate, or rather to feel an +impotent disgust for, whatever was contemporary. + +When his normality abandoned him, he avoided a greater tragedy. In a +manner it was not Mallare who became insane. It was his point of view +that went mad. Although there are passages in the Journal that escape +coherence, the greater part of the entries are simple almost to naiveté. +They reveal an intellect able to adjust itself without complex +uprootings to the phenomena engaging its energies. The first concrete +evidence of the loathing for life that was to result in its own +annihilation appears in a passage beginning abruptly-- + +"Most of all I like the trees when they are empty of leaves. Their +wooden grimaces must aggravate the precisely featured houses of the +town. People who see my work for the first time grow indignant and call +me sick and artificial. (Bilious critics!) But so are these trees. + +"People think of art in terms of symmetry. With a most amazing conceit +they have decided upon the contours of their bodies as the standards of +beauty. Therefore I am pleased to look at trees or at anything that +grows, unhandicapped by the mediocritizing force of reason, and note how +contorted such things are." + +Mallare's point of view toward his world--the attitude that went +mad--was nothing more involved than his egoism. His infatuation with +self was destined to arrive at a peak on whose height he became overcome +with a dizziness. He wrote in his Journal: + +"It is unfortunate that I am a sculptor, a mere artist. Art has become +for me a tedious decoration of my impotence. It is clear I should have +been a God. Then I could have had my way with people. To shriek at them +obliquely, to curse at them through the medium of clay figures, is a +preposterous waste of time. A wounded man groans. I, impaled by life, +emit statues. + +"As a God, however, I would have found a diversion worthy my contempt. I +would have made the bodies of people like their thoughts--crooked, +twisted, bulbous. I would have given them faces resembling their +emotions and converted the diseases of their souls into outline. + +"What fatuous, little cylindrical creatures we humans are! With our +exact and placid surfaces that we call beauty. And these grave and noble +houses we erect! + +"Yes, I ought to have been a God. I should have had my way with people +then. I could have created a world whose horrors would have remained a +consoling flattery to my cynicism." + +There are entries that follow whose significance is lost in a serpentine +rhetoric. They hint at nights of critical terrors. During the writing of +them Mallare was engaged in a desperate pursuit of himself. He was +escaping. He perceived his thoughts racing from his grasp like Maenads +down a tangled slope. The dread of finding himself abandoned brought his +will into life. If he were to go mad he would leap upon his mania and +ride it--quietly into darkness. He would be a gay rider astride his own +phantoms. Rather that than let the first insane capering of his +intellect unhorse him and leave him gibbering after a vanished mount. + +The incoherence of the Journal suddenly glides into an adagio. The panic +has ended. And the lifeless eyed man again smiles triumphant out of the +pages. + +"My room is red. It is hung with red curtains. I have bought only red +things to put in it. The sun coming through my red curtains reddens the +air of the room. + +"I prefer to live in this painted gloom because it is possible I hate +the sunlight. I hate even my rivals the trees. Today I walked and found +trees that resembled too closely people passing under them. One is +impotent before such betrayal. + +"But here in my rooms I find an almost complete annihilation of life. I +am bored with inventing causes for my hatred. There is a diversion on +earth called humanity--creatures full of enamelled lusts and arrogant +decays who go about smiling and slyly obeying laws which protect them +from each other. But they no longer divert me. + +"They tell me of health and sanity. And I say sanity is the determined +blindness which keeps us from seeing one another. More than that, of +course: which keeps us from seeing ourselves. And health is the lame +artifice of our bodies which keeps us from loathing one another. I see +and I loathe. Yet I must beware of falling to sleep in explanations." + +A month or a year may have passed between this and the continuation. +Whatever the period, a clarity arrived. Mallare's mind grappling with +the nightmare shadows engulfing it, distorted his reason to give them +outline and was saved. The writing, however, becomes more labored in +appearance as if the letters of words were now decorations in +themselves. + +"I have listened for years to the prattle of men who call themselves +egoists. It is a title by which they have sought to identify me. To +label a mystery suffices for its dismissal and thus they seek to dismiss +me. There is in egoism, however, a depth to which all but myself are +blind. I have found this depth in myself and out of it rises a +definition which I must consider cautiously. There is but one egoist and +that is He who, intolerant of all but Himself, sets out to destroy all +but Himself. Egoism is the despairing effort of man to return to his +original Godhood; to return to the undisputed and triumphant loneliness +which was His when as a Creator He moulded the world to His whims and +before He divided Himself into the fragments of race and nature. This is +the explanation out of the depth. + +"I must be cautious and keep my eyes open. Secrets fly from the blind. +Mount, I say, and ride this secret and observe its direction. To return +thus to Godhood means to destroy All. And I were madder than I am to +play with this prospect, unless, perhaps, there lie concealed in the +elements, chemistries still unknown which might be utilized for such +destruction. + +"As it is, I can with my thought deny and re-create and impose upon the +world of reality a world of phantoms more pleasing to my nature. In my +red room I sit and give birth to persuasive horrors. People shaped like +dead trees. People freed from the monotonous hypocrisy with which a +despondent Nature endows their outlines. I have become aware that +lobsters, beetles, crabs, and all the crustacean monsters that abound +are not the abnormal accidents of creation, any more than were the +animate gargoyles of prehistoric eras. They are the things which an Ego +intent upon the diversion of truth fashioned in the beginning. Each +thing to seem as each thing was. But the courage of this Ego deserted +Him and He grew frightened when He came to give body to His most useless +creation--Thought. And He compromised. Yes, I could live among people +fashioned truthfully in their own images as are the crustaceans." + +With this entry Mallare found it necessary to destroy the work his hands +had created. He attacked the canvases and figures in his red room. +Goliath who, preoccupied with his own deformities, had remained +indifferent to his master, serving him faithfully however, listened to +Mallare one night. + +Sitting in the center of the room, his black hair grown into a long +slant across his pale forehead, Mallare talked to his servant as a man, +still asleep, reciting a dream. + +"Here in this room, Goliath," he said, "are interesting works of art +which I am about to destroy. On the canvases are dithyrambic burlesques +in color, vicious fantasies, despairing caricatures. My fingers +fashioned them and I remember the pleasant sleep each brought me. But +now I must beware of sleep. My egomania, like a swollen thing, has +become impossible to articulate or to reduce to the impotent ironies of +clay and paint. But I must beware of falling asleep under it. + +"My friends have vanished as naturally as if by death. I have forbidden +them to come. This disturbs them, but see to it, Goliath, that no one +ever enters my room unless I bring them. Frighten them if they come. + +"Tonight, while there remained a little sanity, I had made up my mind to +kill myself. But I have changed it. I will destroy instead my work. This +is because I find the compromise easier and the destruction, perhaps, +more interesting. I feel disinclined to abandon the things I loathe. The +world with its nauseous swarm of life, its monstrous multiplications +which are the eternal insult to the Omniscience I feel, still holds me. +I am caught in a tangle and I remain suspended and inanimate, in the +depth of a nightmare. But with your aid, Goliath, I will continue +tenaciously mimicking an outward sanity so that people, when they see +me, will go away happy in the assurance that I am as stupid as they." + +Rising from his chair Mallare attacked, one by one, the canvases and +statues. Goliath watched him in silence as he moved from pedestal to +pedestal from which, like a company of inert monsters, arose figures in +clay and bronze. The first of them was a man four feet in height but +massive-seeming beyond its dimensions. Mallare had entitled it "The +Lover." + +Its legs were planted obliquely on the pedestal top, their ligaments +wrenched into bizarre muscular patterns. Its body rose in an anatomical +spiral. From its flattened pelvis that seemed like some evil bat +stretched in flight, protruded a huge phallus. The head of the phallus +was enlivened with the face of a saint. The eyes of this face were +raised in pensive adoration. At the lower end of the phallus, the +testicles were fashioned in the form of a short-necked pendulum arrested +at the height of its swing. The hands of the figure clutched talon-like +at the face and the head was thrown back as if broken at the neck. Its +features were obliterated by the hands except for the mouth which was +flung open in a skull-like laugh. + +The figure on the whole was the flayed caricature of a man done so +cunningly that through the abortive hideousness of its outlines, its +human character remained untouched. + +Mallare swung the figure by its base against the pedestal until it +splintered and fell to pieces. He stood whispering to himself-- + +"This was the lover. My statue of the lover. Dead, now." + +A dozen similar caricatures in clay and bronze vanished under his +attack. Standing against the wall and blinking at the rutilant glare of +the room, Goliath the dwarf waited nervously. He had become aware that +his master was acting strangely. A look of ferocity slowly came into the +deep black of his face. His misshapen body trembled. + +Mallare, the destruction ended, turned to him. + +"And finally a last figure," he murmured. "Goliath, too. Do you agree, +Goliath? You will find a congenial company in the souls of these friends +I have butchered." + +Goliath shook his head vigorously. + +"Go 'way," he answered. Mallare nodded. + +"Thanks," he smiled. "You reminded me in time. It is easy to mistake you +for one of my creations. Although I never created such eyes, improbable +eyes alive with murders. Go to bed." + +Alone amid the wreckage, Mallare turned to his Journal. A precise smile +was on his lips and his eyes slanted toward the debris on the floor as +if he were watching the fragments, fearfully. His hair made a black +triangle against his forehead. He began to write: + +"I am too clever to go mad. To go mad is to succumb to the sanity of +others. Since I avoid death, I must be wary of his misshapen brother. +Yet, I can prove to my satisfaction tonight that I am mad. I have +destroyed something. It was because the intricate presences of life +awaken too many despairs in me. + +"Now I am alone. I must be cautious of my thought. I feel words like +rivals in my head. Alas, I must think in words. Words are the inevitable +canonizations of life. But worse, they are property loaned me and not +my own. I must have my own and live with it entirely. Yet there is some +comfort in words. They are not entirely sullied by their promiscuity. +Words are like nuts people pass each other without ever opening. The +insides of words are often virginal. But many words--too many +words--constitute intelligence and intelligence is the stupidity which +enables man to imprison himself in lies. + +"Years have passed and I still live. I do not look for death. Death is +too simple a variant of destruction. My cleverness demands more of me +than to destroy the world by hiding myself from it. And there is a song +of windows in the high streets that sometimes relieves the black tension +of my mind. + +"It is important now that I retrace my way toward a makeshift of +Omnipotence. But for this I will have to find a woman." + + + + +[Illustration: Second Drawing] + + + + +[II] + + +It was autumn. The air was colored like the face of a sick boy. Upon the +streets rested a windless chill. The pavements were somber as during +rain. There was an absence of illusion about buildings. They stood, high +thrusts of brick, stone and glass, etched geometrically against a +denuded sky. + +Fantazius Mallare walked slowly toward his home. Over his head, trees +without leaves stamped their gnarled and intricate contours on the +shadowed air. A pallor covered the roofs. It was afternoon but a +moon-like loneliness haunted the autumn windows. + +Mallare lived in another world. Neither trees nor buildings conveyed +themselves to his thought. Within his own world he was sane. His +relation to the phantoms and ideas which peopled his mind was a lucid +one. Mallare's world was his thought. He had retired within himself, +dragging his senses after him. + +The street through which he walked was like an unremembered dream. The +faces that passed him vanished before his eyes. He walked, seeing +nothing that was visible, hearing nothing that had sound. He had +accomplished an annihilation. + +Three months had passed since he had written in his Journal the command +to find a woman. She was waiting for him now as he returned to his home. +In the three months he had devoted himself to her transformation. + +Mallare no longer raged. In the lucidity of his thought was a strange +lapse. There had vanished from it all images of life except those of his +own creation. His thought emptied of its projective sense, he found it +difficult for him to translate his ideas in their relation to the world +from which they had escaped. Yet he wrote in his Journal; + +"I am aware of something that no longer lives in my mind. Dim outlines +haunt me. Dead memories peer through the windows of my tower. Life +grimaces vaguely on the edges of my madness. I can no longer see or +understand. The world is a memory that expires under my thought. I am +alone. Yet how much of me must still be the world! My dearest phantoms +are, after all, no more than distorted reminiscences. I fear, alas, this +is the truth. Yet it is pleasant to be alone with one's senses, to feel +an independence." + +The woman awaiting him was a curious creature. He had found her with a +family of gypsies on the outskirts of the city. She was young--eighteen. +His money had bought her release. She was called Rita and after two +weeks she had agreed to come home with him. An old man in the caravan +had said to her: + +"This man is crazy. You can see that by his eyes and the way he walks. I +have listened to him for two weeks and I know he is crazy. But you go +with him, Rita. He is lonely and wants a woman. You go with him and obey +him. You are young and he will teach you. Perhaps even you will fall in +love with him. You are an ignorant child. Your mind is like a baby's. +And perhaps you will not understand that he is crazy." + +Among the gypsies with whom she had lived Rita was known as a simple +one. She was never to be trusted to enter the cities they visited. She +would remain with the wagons, helping to cook and wash. When men came to +her in the evening and, sitting beside her, sang and played on guitars, +she would listen for a moment and then run off. The old ones of the +caravan said: + +"She is not grown up. We must treat her like a child because there is +still only a child's heart in her. She is beautiful but without sense. +Some day she will make a good wife. But there is danger that she may +give her body to strangers. Because she does not know about such things. +We must be careful for her." + +Sitting along the summer roads outside the city Mallare talked to the +child. She listened without understanding but after days had passed, +dreams of the man with the black hair slanting across his forehead came +to her when she was alone. So when the Old One of the caravan said-- + +"You may go with this stranger. You can go away if you wish"; she nodded +and smiled with happiness. + +Mallare brought her home. And she had lived in the carnelian room that +was colored like the inside of a Burgundy bottle ever since. Goliath was +her slave. Mallare was her God. + +At first he had said little to her. She wanted him to talk but he +neither talked nor paid other attention. He brought her ribbons and +dresses, trinkets, jewels, and playthings. She had a room in which to +sleep but all day she sat in the room that was hung with heavy red +curtains through which the sun filtered in a rouged and somber glow. +Vermilion fabrics covered a long couch against the wall. Red carpets, +red tapestries, tawny vases of brass inlaid with niello; crimsons and +varying reds struck an insistent octave of color around her. + +Mallare was absent during the days. She wondered where he went. He would +return in the evenings with gifts. This had continued for a month. Then +had begun a more curious existence. + +One night Mallare had said to her: + +"You must never talk to me any more but listen always to what I say. If +you remain here you will have everything you wish. But you must not go +outside. Do you understand?" + +She closed her black eyes and nodded. He continued-- + +"I desire to make something out of you. If you stay here you will learn +what I want you to be." + +Thereafter he had sat for days at a time in the room with her. Goliath +brought them food. + +To Rita the smiling man who never ceased talking to her became like one +of the Djinns the old ones of the caravan used to tell stories about, in +the nights along the roads. The words he spoke became a languorous mist +in her ears. She listened and understood only that this man with the +black hair slanted across his forehead and the silent eyes, was talking +to her. This made her happy. + +At night she slept alone dreaming of the sound of his voice. Her heart +became filled with awe. The strange room with its red colors was a +Temple such as she had heard about but never seen. Mallare was a God who +sat in its center and around whom grew a world of mysteries. + +When she awoke her heart grew eager. Perhaps he would let her sit closer +to him this new day. Perhaps his hands would touch her hair. She dreamed +that some time he would play a guitar and sing to her as the men of the +caravan used to do. But if that happened she would not run away as +before. She would draw close to him and kiss his hands. + +But the two months had passed without change. Except that the days +became for Rita only the sound of a voice in her heart and the image of +a face staring out of her secret thoughts. + +She wore fine clothing. Rings crowded her fingers until her hands seemed +little effigies of themselves. Her black hair was looped over her ears. +A gold band was around it. She would have been happy if he had sat +closer to her while he talked. Then the mystery of the words he spoke +would not have separated them. Now she could lie on the couch, her head +on her hand, her eyes burning and watch his lips move. + +Her mind never asked what he was saying. His words carried him away. +They were part of the mystery of him. Out of them she gleaned fugitive +meanings as one recognizes for an instant familiar faces in a passing +crowd. But she was content to lie watching him. A lethargy filled her. +The days were like parts of a dream. At night, alone, she lay awake +remembering them as a child playing with delicious fantasies. + +She was asleep on the couch when Mallare came in. Goliath shuffled away +as his master appeared. He had been standing in the center of the room, +staring at the sleeping Rita, his eyes rolled up and his huge black head +rigid. + +She woke and Mallare smiled at her. Her eyes grew large and her red lips +parted. + +Mallare, seating himself, studied her with calm. She was his creation. +He was giving her life. His mind was beginning to conceive her as a part +of the phantoms that lived in him and that were his world. This illusion +diverted him. His objective sense fast vanishing, he was gradually +perceiving her as a tangible outline of his own hallucinations. + +She was no longer the childish-minded gypsy girl he had found with the +caravan. She was a fantasy of Mallare. There was no body to her but the +body of his curious thoughts. A silent and adoring image of his brain +stared back at him from the vermilion couch. This pleased him. + +His madness had translated her into his inner world. At moments a gleam +of doubt disturbed his illusion. As he talked a consciousness of her +eyes would tangle his words. Her eyes would become two dark intruders, +and he would rise and walk away. + +"I must be careful," he would mutter nervously. + +Away from her the illusion would leave him and his thought would +consider lucidly the situation it had created. + +"My madness plays with a dangerous toy," he pondered. "She is a woman +and her eyes are filled with desire. Perhaps she has not even understood +the things I have told her. I must be careful, however, not to betray my +illusions with this lingering sanity. When I am with her I conceive her +a phantom--a something which has stepped out of my madness to divert it. +Her body becomes like one of the dreams in my brain. Her little hands +reach like cobra heads among my intimacies. She is very beautiful that +way. In my mind I caress her as a part of myself. I speak to her and it +seems as if my words are talking to each other. Yet her eyes intrude and +frighten me." + +Now, as he studied her, the illusion he desired again filled him. His +eyes turned inward saw only a dark-eyed phantom, a woman of mist that +was no more than a hallucination drifting through his thought. He +addressed this image of Rita softly. + +"It is pleasant to be in love with you," he said. "Because love hitherto +has been one of the abominations. In the world I have destroyed love +existed. It was the foul paradox of egoism. Man, feeling suddenly the +torment of his incompleteness, embraced woman. He was inspired by the +mania to transform his desires into possessions. + +"His heart taunted him. His brain filled with despairing vacuums. And he +said to himself, 'I have become a deserted room. A woman will enter. Her +beauty and desire will be gifts that will furnish me once more. She +will be something I possess within myself.' + +"In this illusion was contained the foul paradox of egoism. For in the +world I have destroyed, egoism died in the embrace of love. The mania +for possession which flattered man into seeking woman was no more than a +shrewd mirage of his senses, that tricked him into the fornications +necessary only incidentally to himself but vital to the world which he +fancied love obliterated. + +"For all these strenuous admirations of beauty--what are they but the +subterfuges by which man hopefully conceals his lacking egoism from +himself? He admires the tints of hair. His thought trembles before the +curve of a neck. Graceful images unravel in his mind at the sight of a +woman's breasts. To himself he declaims, 'I am in love with her. She is +beautiful. I will take her beauty in my arms. There is an emptiness in +me that clamors for the charm and mystery of this woman.' + +"Accordingly he embraces her. There is tenderness between them. Their +bodies, indeed, seem to have become overtones that mate in a delicious +and inaudible melody. But this melody must be brought closer so that its +beauty may be more definitely enjoyed. This melody must be played on +instruments and not on thin air. + +"And, selah! The egoist beautifying himself with love, finds himself +removing his shoes, tearing off his underwear, fondling a warm thigh and +steering his phallus toward its absurd destiny. The transvaluations--the +ineffable and inarticulate mysteries he fancied himself embracing--turn +out to be a woman with her legs wrapped around him. His desires for the +infinite sate themselves in the feeble tickle of orgasm. Cerberus +seduced from his Godhood by a dog biscuit! + +"As for those animals whose egoism has never escaped their testicles, +they are not to be spoken of as men. Their imagination discharges itself +through their penis. They are the husbands in the world I have +destroyed. They understand neither beauty nor disillusion. The vagina is +a door at which they deliver regularly like industrious milkmen. They +are the sexual workmen to whom fornication is as much a necessity as +poverty is to incompetents. + +"I alone have found the way in which to love. I love and grow richer. I +am mad. Yet how admirable my madness is! My eyes and senses are enslaved +by a radiant phantom. As I talk your outlines grow luminous. Your eyes +become like conquered Satans. They crawl inside my brain like amorous +spiders. Your lips are the libretto of a dream. Your breasts are little +blind faces raised in prayer. Your body flutters like a rich curtain +before the door of enchantments. I look within. Thus I possess you and +my senses without leaving themselves, enter the infinity of my mind." + +Mallare's eyes closed. He remained rigid in his chair. A murmur that +Rita could no longer hear came from his lips, as if voices were +speaking out of a depth. + +"Rita ... Rita," they said, "See, eyes prowling like golden tigers. +Cobra hands playing over my soul. Mine ... I walk with you through +gardens, deeper and endless." + +The murmur ended. Rita, watching from the couch, lay trembling. Warm +tongues spoke within her body. Her breasts tightened until they felt +impaled on their own nipples. Her child's mind was alive with impulses +driving her like slow whips. She would crawl shivering to his feet. Her +breasts would press their pain against his knees. Desire like an +impossible anger filled her. She closed her eyes and felt herself moving +from the couch. She would lie at his feet. + +Her hands reached out. Mallare regarded her blankly for a moment. A +wildness slowly filled his eyes. He sprang up. Goliath crouching in a +corner of the dim room watched his master raise the velveted figure in +his hands and fling it with a cry against the wall. + +"Fool!" he shouted. "Intruder!" + +Goliath cringed as his master rushed past him to the door. He listened +to his feet flying down the stairs toward the night. + +Rita lay with her head hanging over the couch. Her lips were opened. Her +teeth gleamed like little deaths. She lay motionless as Mallare had +flung her. + +Goliath shuffled to the couch. His huge black face stared over her +closed eyes. + + + + +[Illustration: Third Drawing] + + + + +[III] + + +He remembered that he had thrown the girl against the wall and he +paused. The street was black. Great shadows balanced themselves on his +eyes. + +"I have escaped from myself," he muttered. + +He stood trying to remember himself. But his mind was like a night. +Shapes tip-toed through its dark. A hooded figure loomed in his mind. It +swung toward him as if it were flying out of his eyes. Other figures +swept by. They assumed strange postures as they passed. His thoughts +regarded them tiredly. He desired to join the figures fleeing out of +him. Then he would vanish with them. + +"I am too clever for that," he murmured aloud. "Yet it would be +pleasing. To think in dark, hooded figures; ah--they have adventures! +And I would sit like a night alive with witches." + +He stared with a smile at the street. + +"I no longer see or understand," he whispered. His hands felt his sides. + +"Yet here I am. There is a life within me that I dare not enter. I must +remember this. Write 'Forbidden' over its black doors. To succumb to my +madness would be to lose it." + +He resumed his walk. + +"She intruded," he remembered. "Perhaps I have killed her. That would be +pleasant. Except that she was necessary as an image. I am the mirror and +she is an image alive in me. Her desire is a happy shadow I embrace." + +Mallare's eyes opened to the night. + +"Strange," he thought, "I see and yet what I look at remains invisible. +But tonight outlines dance. The night is a maniac suffering from ennui. +His dark eyes are weary with the emptiness they create. Vainly he +searches for life, his eyes devouring it, and leaving only his own image +for him to contemplate. + +"I am not so mad as that. Or I, too, would sit like the night gorged +with monotonous shadows. Instead, I translate. A memory of sanity gives +diverting outline to the shadows in me. I am not a maniac like the +night. My mind closes like a darkness over the world but I enjoy myself +walking amid insane houses, staring at windows that look like drunken +octagons, observing lamp posts that simper with evil, promenading fan +shaped streets that scribble themselves like arithmetic over my face. + +"These must be the things I look at. But they are my improvement. The +world is not so outrageous if one is sufficiently mad to pull it into +taffy shapes and incredible scrawls. + +"But I must be warned. My madness sought to avenge itself at her +intrusion. It overcame me with its anger. She was not content to let me +possess the beautiful image of her. Although I have explained the thing +to her clearly. It is possible she does not understand. I will talk to +her again with greater lucidity. I will tell her that I do not desire +her except as a dream for my mirror. But I have said that to her." + +Under the green-white sputter of a street lamp, Mallare halted. His mind +was preoccupied with unraveling the mystery of Rita. He stood, a tall +figure without a hat, a slant of black hair across his forehead, and +ignoring eyes. A beggar in a ragged overcoat shuffled, head down, toward +him. + +"She is only a child," Mallare thought, "but it is evident that passion +already lifts her breasts. Her simplicity is betrayed by incipient +orgasms prowling for an outlet. This, she fancies, is love. It is +fortunate she is a virgin. Still, I must not rely too greatly on that. +For virginity is an insidious bed fellow for a maiden. Forefingers and +phallic shadows have ravished her in dreams. And if she is a virgin in +spirit as well as body, she is still a woman--and therefore dangerous. + +"Ah, what loathsome and lecherous mouths women are! Offering their urine +ducts as a mystic Paradise! Stretching themselves on their backs and +seducing egoists with the unctuous lie of possession. The mania for +possession--that most refined of all instincts--the most heroic of +insanities! How easily they circumvent it! To desire is merely to love. +But to create in oneself the objects of desire--that is to be mad and +above life. Beyond it. + +"I must explain this to her. If she loves me well enough she will +understand. All things are possible in love. I will explain to her that +I possess her at will without the loathsome absurdities of sex." + +The beggar paused and mumbled beside Mallare. Watery, reddened eyes +waited patiently for the alms asked. Mallare had fallen into silence. He +stood regarding the beggar intently. His thought labored for a moment, +scratching in silence at doors swinging slowly shut. His thought +withdrew and Mallare was alone. + +He stood up tall and stern in a darkened chamber. His eyes stared +intently at the figure of Rita. Her face, pale and alive, smiled +imploring in the mendicant's place. He talked, but the beggar, still +patient, heard no sound. + +"You have followed me," said Mallare inside his chamber. "Very well. It +is useless to explain matters to you. You pursue me with your lecherous +body. I have warned you. Now I will kill you. I will take your throat in +my hands and that will be an end of you. You will fall down." + +The beggar uttered a cry of terror. Mallare's hands had reached suddenly +to his throat and their fingers, like inviolable decisions, closed on +it. The ragged one screamed. A man with a slant of black hair across his +forehead who had stood smiling at him had without sound or warning +reached out his hands to murder him. The beggar gasped and writhed, his +eyes staring with horror into the immobile face of his assailant. And +within himself Mallare continued the strange conversation. + +"You see how simple it is," he said. "After you are dead I will continue +to enjoy for a time the uninterrupted image of you. You will haunt my +thought until you grow dim. But I will possess the vanishing shadow.... +But now you die." + +Mallare tightened his hold on the beggar's neck and the man's cries +ended. His head fell forward. Mallare held the dead figure erect, +shaking it gently and smiling at the one in his thought. + +"Ah, Rita," he whispered, "it is over now." + +His hands released the throat they were holding. The beggar fell to the +ground. Mallare stared at the body and then knelt beside it. His hands +passed over the dead face. + +"Poor Rita," he continued. "No longer dangerous." + +He bent over and kissed the matted hair of the dead man. + +"Death," he said aloud as he rose, "is an easy friendship. You would +have been sorry a moment ago. But now you are neither sorry nor glad. +See, your body is a humble little gratitude." + +Mallare walked away. His thought, like a cautious monitor, re-entered +the doors that had closed upon it. + +"Curious," he said aloud, "she followed me and I killed her. Madness is, +alas, too logical. I remember almost nothing of the incident. It is a +part of the shadows not of me. Still I know it exists. My hands feel +tired. But there is nothing to regret. She came too close. And now she +lies dead in a strange street. They will find her and perhaps ask me +about it. What do I know? Nothing. My memory is innocent. It is after +all my superior. I must remain, unquestioning, at its side. This is a +pact." + +He returned to his home. The familiar room greeted him like a +friendship. He sat down and closed his eyes. Goliath had gone to bed. +And she was no longer here. + +His hands felt tired. He was alone again. But he would remember her. +Eyes like conquered Satans. They would crawl again like spiders through +his brain. Breasts like little blind faces raised in prayer. Her body +fluttering like a rich curtain before the door of enchantments. These +were still his. + +"Tomorrow, Rita," he murmured aloud to his thoughts. + +A figure stirred on the couch. She had watched him come in, his hair +disheveled, his body dragging. Her eyes had followed him as he sat down. +But she had waited motionless. Perhaps he had come back to kill her. She +lay shivering. Then his voice called her name. + +Standing slowly, Rita waited. He was asleep but he had called her. She +moved cautiously over the heavy carpet. Mallare opened his eyes. He +looked at the burning-eyed figure of the girl his hands remembered +having killed in the strange street. + +"A hallucination," his thought muttered. "But the dead do not come +back." + +The scene under the green-white street lamp played its swift detail +through his mind again. He remembered the white throat, the pale, +imploring face. A shudder passed his heart. He had murdered her. Yet +here she stood once more, looking at him. + +Mallare smiled. + +"Ah," he thought. "Mad, completely mad. Yet it is not as unpleasant as I +feared. Why, indeed, am I startled? This is what I desired. To create +for myself out of myself. And here my phantoms have become so rich and +strong that they confront me. I desired to be God. And I have answered +my own prayer. It is an illusion. Its substance is only the life my +madness gives it. Yet I, who am the companion of my madness, may enjoy +it." + +Rita shivered again as he laughed. + +"Come closer," he whispered to her. "Or are you too timorous a +hallucination, Rita? Come closer and let me see. What a curious +sensation! To caress the figures of my madness! Then there is no longer +any sanity in me. For my fingers are aware of hair. Ah, dear child, +Mallare is completely mad since at last his senses betray him. But they +betray him sweetly. For though I babble to myself you have no existence, +though I smile at the thought of caressing a phantom, my senses derive a +mysterious pleasure from this contact with nothingness. Curious ... +curious ... come closer, Rita. Now smile at me. Yes, your lips move. You +are an automaton born of my words. Give me your hand. It is warm and +trembling. Ah, my phantom is in love with me. But that love, too, is an +illusion I create. No, do not come too close. Let me grow accustomed +first to my madness. You are happy, eh? How marvelous your eyes! They +were beautiful before when they crawled like round spiders through my +brain. But elusive. They fled from me, my madness pursuing them into +dark, empty corners. + +"But now I have grown cleverer. It is necessary to be superbly clever in +order to fool one's senses like this. But take off your clothes, little +one. I want to see how clever I am. Has my phantom a body, too, or is it +only a face and an illusion of fabric I have created? Your velvet dress, +Rita, take it off. Ah, what a virginal phantom." + +Rita, trembling before the gleam of the eyes that had opened to her, +listened anxiously. An ecstasy drifted like a cloud over her senses. He +had touched her. His hands had passed over her head as she had dreamed +they might. His eyes were smiling with intimacy at her face. But he had +warned her never to speak. She must not spoil it by speaking. She stood +swaying before him. + +"Your velvet dress," he repeated. + +Her hands reached dreamily to her body. He would see now how beautiful +she was. The men in the caravan had called her beautiful. But she had +run from them. That was long ago. Now she would show him how the skin +of her body looked, how her breasts made pretty curves, and how she had +washed herself in the perfumes he had given her. + +"Ah," murmured Mallare, his eyes filling with wonder. "How incredibly +clever my madness has become! My little phantom undresses. Illusion--yet +my conveniently stupid senses are deceived. But what delicious +deception! See, her throat and breasts are white. Her body is white. I +may reach out and touch the flesh of her thighs. I am as indecent as God +for I have given her sex. But what a plagiarist I am! My phantom is as +charming and naive as an art student's copy. Still, she is not a woman +and therefore not hateful. Without life, even this may be considered +entertaining." + +His hands moved cautiously over her body, his fingers slipping +experimentally over the flesh of her buttocks and thighs. + +"Interesting," he smiled. "Like St. Anthony I create odalisques for my +seduction. Ah, but there is a difference. This is mine ... mine!" + +His eyes gleamed with a quick frenzy at the naked figure. + +"Speak. I desire you to speak, little one. If I can believe in the +illusion of flesh and eager eyes, then I can believe in the illusion of +sound. Come speak. I am at the mercy of my madness. If you speak to me, +little one, I will understand. My stupid senses that retain their +earthly logic will be ravished at the sound of your voice. But I will +chuckle at my cleverness. Tell me, are you mine? Can you say, 'I am +yours'? Can you give yourself to me and deceive me with the beautiful +illusion of submission? Tell me. Speak to me." + +Her eyes burning toward him, Rita nodded her head. + +"Yours," she whispered. "Whatever you say, I am." + +"Clever, clever," Mallare muttered, "it speaks to me and I hear. It says +'yours.' I become too involved. Or perhaps this is only a dream. Of +course, what else can it be? Part of me has fallen asleep and is +dreaming. And because I am mad I fancy myself awake. And my senses obey +me. Desire whispers to them, 'Hear voices. See flesh. Feel desire,' and +like five little awkward masochists they prostrate themselves before my +madness. + +"But my senses are of no great interest. There is this other--this mania +of possession of which passion, compounded of all the senses, is but an +unimportant fragment. I am a man with a woman inside him. I possess the +secret of the hermaphroditic Gods. I am complete." + +Rita kneeled beside him and his hands stroked her black hair. Her face +remained raised in adoration. Mallare, observing her eyes, nodded +satisfactions at them. + +"Who but Mallare could have done this?" he whispered aloud to her. +"Mallare, infatuated with himself, desires still a further adoration. So +he creates infatuated phantoms. I am tired now. My hands are tired. +Return, little one, to the couch of my madness and sleep for a time in +its shadows." + +Mallare shut his eyes and his hands dropped to his side. Rita arose and +smiled at him. He had spoken strangely, but his words were no longer +mysteries since he had caressed her. She would lie now at his feet as +she had dreamed of doing. She stretched herself out on the thick carpet. + +Her childish mind fondled its unexpected memories. He had looked at her +body and spoken beautiful words to it. She remembered the talk of the +old ones of the caravan. A woman belongs to a man. This meant that she +belonged to him. She had said, "Yours." + +Her face smiled itself to sleep. + + + + +[Illustration: Fourth Drawing] + + + + +[IV] + +_From the Journal of Mallare dated November._ + + +"I no longer understand myself. My thoughts stretch themselves into +baffling elasticities. My brain is a labyrinth through which reason +searches in vain for itself. I walk cautiously. Yet I am lost. + +"To think has become like adding a continually increasing column of +figures. I sit and add. The figures will add up into a finite sum and +this sum will be the understanding of myself. I apply myself carefully +to each figure and say, 'two and three are five. Five and seven are +twelve.' But as I reach what seems an end I find more figures waiting +me. + +"I can no longer add up the fragments or interpret them. I must be +content now to sit and wait until this part of me--my relation to +myself--splinters into fragments and I become a dice box shaking with +mysterious and invisible combinations. + +"It is the phantom Rita that is threatening to drive me into darkness. +Since I murdered her in the street, the hallucination has become +overwhelming. It is with me almost continually. When I open my eyes from +sleep I find it waiting at my bed. The hallucination leaves me when I am +outside, although at times a trace of it returns and I seem more to feel +its presence within me than behold it with my senses. + +"Yes, I am clinging desperately to these moments of objectivity which +enable me to write. But even they threaten to betray me. For as I write +doubts dance like macabre figures among my words. The very sentences +seem to stretch themselves into ridiculous postures. And I must almost +close my eyes and stumble blindly through a storm of denouements. + +"I desired to create for myself a world within which I might love and +hate--to be a God lost within his dream. Madness was necessary, so I +embraced it. But my dream becomes the product of a Frankenstein. +She--the hallucination--is more real to my senses than am I. And I can +no longer control her. My senses are unfaithful to me. They philander +clownishly with this mirage of my thought. Then what is there left? I. +This grim figure stumbling with his head down through a storm of +denouements. I persist--an unwelcome visitor, a bargain-hunting tourist +in Bedlam. I remain. + +"But it is a boast that laughs back at me. For I will soon be a little +plaything of my phantom. Last night I walked until I thought I had rid +myself. Her eyes alone lingered. Her hands moved like slow dancers. But +I walked and said to myself, 'I am tired of nonsense. I am tired of this +monotonous hallucination. At least let me be unfaithful to my dream +since I am the God who created it.' + +"I walked to the street where a month ago she had followed me under the +arc lamp. It was cold and I grew tired. I came back to sleep. 'Gone, she +is gone,' I whispered to myself. The room appeared empty. I was +cautious, knowing the ruses of this thing in my mind. For my madness and +I are no longer friends. My madness hides for me and plays tricks. + +"But she returned. I smiled at her. It is folly to grow angry with one's +own hallucinations. That would be a double madness. As she stood before +me, my treacherous senses leaped to their sterile feast. And I smiled. + +"'My egoism has betrayed me,' I reasoned. 'The love that gleams from the +eyes of this hallucination is the invention of my egoism. Alas, I love +myself too much, for the passion for Mallare with which my madness +endows this illusion of a woman, threatens me. My senses have already +abandoned me. They no longer obey the direction of my will. And I must +stand like a scold, laughing and sneering at them as they yield +themselves to her. She is more powerful, therefore, than I, even though +her existence is no more than a shadow cast in front of my eyes.' + +"I reasoned in this fashion and continued to smile. It would be best, +perhaps, to humor her. Who knows but even hallucinations are subject to +wiles and coquetry. A disturbing fancy, this--one of the distortions +that insist upon raising their mocking heads from the midst of my +cautious sentences. + +"She came and knelt beside me and I shook my head at her. She was +dressed in a gown I had never seen before. It was red. I spoke aloud and +said-- + +"'See, how abominably clever I am. My madness is a jack of all trades. +It makes new dresses for its phantoms. It arranges their coiffures. It +even puts rouge on their cheeks.' + +"But as I talked her hands reached out to me. To look into her eyes that +are always alive with flames is to succumb. For then I find myself +dreaming my dream is not a dream. My senses clamor that I join them. + +"'Forget. Forget,' they whisper, 'come with us.' + +"But I chose to persist. I remain. To sit in an empty whorehouse and +masturbate.... No! If this hallucination grows powerful enough to trick +my senses into clownish fornications, let my madness enjoy them. Not I. +We are no longer friends, my madness and I. + +"She pressed her cheek against my leg. I could feel her body trembling. + +"I remained motionless and spoke to her. 'Each night you grow bolder,' I +said. I am no different from other Gods in that I seem to have endowed +you with the instinct of profanation. But at least Eve did not turn on +Jehovah with the whore tricks learned from His apple. There is +consolation, however, in the fact that I, too, can remain indifferent. +Indifference is the wisdom of God. + +"'You may play with me. Yet I know that the burn of your hand on my body +is an absurdity, of interest only to my idiot senses. My arms reach out +to embrace you. Your breasts surprise my fingers. Come, sit in my lap if +you wish. No, I would rather enjoy you as before--standing before me +naked. Take off your clothes.' + +"While I talked she clung to me. Her lips passed kisses over my face. I +continued, however, to observe; to remain a spectator. She removed her +clothes, tearing them from her body and laughing. And standing before me +naked but for her black silk stockings and red slippers, she held out +her arms. But I shook my head and smiled. + +"'I am the victim of an overwhelming desire to masturbate,' I said to +her, 'since I find it difficult to resist you. But if I yield to the +mysterious reality you have assumed I will become too grotesque for my +vanity to tolerate. I will remain aware while possessing you that my +penis is beating a ludicrous tattoo on a sofa cushion. I choose rather +to emulate the pride of St. Anthony, who shrewdly refused to play the +whoremonger with shadows.' + +"I smiled at her and she laughed. She crouched on her feet staring up at +me. Raising my eyes from her, I saw Goliath. He was standing in the +curtains of his room, watching me with a curious, open-mouthed fury. I +saw that the little monster was beginning to understand that I was mad, +and this irritated me. There was danger in him, since even through his +stupid head must have passed a wonder of what had happened to Rita. + +"I frowned at Goliath and his head rolled frightenedly on his heavy +shoulders. + +"'Why do you bother me when I wish to be alone?' I cried. 'Go to your +bed and leave me.' + +"I stood up and went for him. His head fell and he dragged himself back +into his room. This was, perhaps, the most curious thing in the +incident. 'I am ashamed of being seen with this nude phantom,' I +thought. For a moment the mad idea came to me that she was visible to +Goliath--that he was watching us--me and this figment of mine. My anger +was shame. My senses are logical in their pretenses. How can I stand +out against them, if they grow cleverer than I, more persuasive than I, +and lead me finally into the total madness of accepting them as +Mallare--the one Mallare, the lunatic who has escaped himself? I must +not escape. + +"When I returned she was still crouching on the floor. I decided to +experiment. Perhaps there was still some lingering sense in me that +would fail to succumb to this astonishing make-believe. + +"'Come here. On the couch,' I ordered her. + +"She obeyed. She stretched herself out and I sat beside her. The odor of +her body was distinct. Perfumes spread a clever gloss over the woman +smell, the bitter salt odor that stirred from between her closed thighs. +I smiled, for the logic of this illusion grows entertaining. But I had +decided on experiments. My hands stroked her hair, feeling of its +strands. My fingers pressed at the skull beneath the warm skin of her +head. Then I held her breasts, that had once seemed to me like two +little blind faces raised in prayer. But imagery no longer decorates my +thought. My hallucination is no longer a weaver of magical phrases. But +stark, real--its heart beating under ribs, its skin glowing with +perspiration, its nipples standing out. As I caressed her I heard her +say: + +"'Yours. Yours. I am your woman.' + +"Her thighs opened and her arms that had been held toward me fell to her +sides. My hand slipped between. There was warm flesh. Yes, it was flesh +to my mind. And I sat for moments allowing the illusion to stir a +passion in me. I would throw myself on this thing, hold it in my arms, +give myself to it. Where was the wrong in that, since it was only myself +I ravished--a phantom mocking me behind my eyes? + +"Goliath saved me. I saw him standing once more in the curtains of his +room. His long arms were beating against his sides, the black fingers +opening and shutting like frantic talons. He stood with his head rolling +as if he were trying to stand erect. His eyes were insane. + +"I sprang away, again pulled by the unmistakable emotion of shame. He +glared at me for a moment, but as my hand caught his face he toppled +over and lay whining. I picked him up and threw him into his bed and +locked the door of his room. + +"When I returned she still lay. Her eyes were closed. She looked at me +and I saw she was weeping. + +"'Since you are not to be reasoned out of existence, since you seem to +resist what is left of my sanity--there is nothing to do but tolerate +you.' + +"I sat in my chair and spoke to her. + +"'It will end in my loathing you,' I said. 'I created you in order to +possess you beyond the realism of the senses. For a time your body was +like a rich curtain before the door of enchantments which I might enter +at will. + +"'But there is no longer a door. Your body alone confronts me. In this +way I am reduced to enjoying my dream with my senses. Then it means +only that I have achieved nothing more by my madness than the privilege +of masturbating with the aid of an erotic phantom. + +"'Alas, the reason of it is clear. Man's fiber is fouled throughout with +sex. I sought to emancipate myself from all relation to life. The +delusion of my hopes is more to be pitied than the disorder of my +vanity. For I see now that man is a collection of adjectives loaned to a +phallus. His intellect is no more than a diverting hiatus between +fornications. His soul, yes, his very egoism on which he prides himself, +is a synthetic erection. + +"'To possess! What a delusion! And for its sake I threw my genius away. +I stripped the world from my eyes that it might not intrude upon the +universe within me. A paradise in which I might strut alone. Possess +myself. Yes, and here I am, aware at last of folly. For my senses belong +to life. And though I buried myself in a madness deeper than night, they +would still cling to me. Though I castrated myself, they would +remain--five invisible testicles. It is impossible to possess. Folly to +attempt. As long as the senses remain life clings like a dead whore to +my darkness. Even my madness that I prided myself upon is a babbling +witch astride a phallus, her lips bending over it with grewsome hungers. + +"'There is only one castration--death. What am I now? Mad? Yes. And +worse. Disillusioned. I have closeted myself with a lecherous animal and +it turns on me. That is the reward of the privacy I hungered after. + +"'And you who lie and weep on a couch are no longer the dream of a God, +but the crude marionette created by lust for its own diversion. I +thought only to go mad. But I see I have become an idiot.' + +"There was no more to say. Her weeping ended and she vanished. But she +will return. In my sleep her outline wanders like an amorous ghost +haunting the grave of my senses. Ah, I must be cautious now, more +cautious, always cautious. It would be too easy to yield. And if I +yielded and returned again my defeat would be unbearable. I think it is +easier to die. Death is no more than a premature torment. Its name alone +is a suffering. Its reality but a final illusion. + +"But I persist. I still remain. There is a rhythm to things that still +seduces me. A gentle curiosity that gives the lie to my bewilderment. I +sit, an audience, shedding crocodile tears at a melodrama. + +"Tomorrow ... tomorrow. Who can think that word is still himself? What +difference does it make if I grow uncomfortable and swollen with +illusions? I persist. And who knows but tomorrow will be a door in my +labyrinth ... a bottom to this pit into which I have fallen?" + + + + +[Illustration: Fifth Drawing] + + + + +[V] + +_From the Journal of Mallare dated December._ + + +"Her murder was simple. We stood under an arc lamp and my hands killed +her. I remember her face looking imploringly at me. And when I went away +I leaned over and kissed her hair. She was dead in the street. It was +simple. + +"Now I must kill again. It is no longer simple. I must teach her to hate +me. She will vanish then. It is clear in my thought. My hands are +useless against her now. I have held them about her neck and she +laughs. + +"All day she runs around in the room. At night she comes to my bed. Her +hands wake me up. She plays with me. I lie thinking how she may be +murdered this second time. She has grown loathsome. I allow her to cover +my body with kisses and listen to her laughter. Pollutions result. I am +powerless against her lips and terrible fingers. She devours me night +after night like a succubus. I lie and masturbate with a phantom. + +"But I will discover a way to kill this thing. I close my eyes and lie +powerless while she repeats the refrain I once taught her. 'Yours ... +yours. I am your woman.' + +"I have hurled her out of bed, hurled her body against the wall. She +continues to laugh like a child. I think of her as real. Goliath knows I +am mad. He watches me while I struggle with this thing. He is filled +with terror. I have told him to go, but he remains. + +"She sleeps in the bed that Rita used. I have seen her there. Stood +beside her listening to her breathe. If I die she will pursue me in +death. She is more real than I. I must kill her. My hands have never +touched her since the night on the couch. I have kept myself intact. I +still remain. She is a virgin. My thought is mad. It plays with the idea +of fornication. Once, screams frightened her out of my bed. I lay unable +to resist. My body reached toward her. An anger that was like death +blinded me. I cried out and saved myself. My thought crept back from the +madness. I called myself back. + +"I can no longer close my eyes to her. She grimaces in the dark. And she +is at my heels in the street. I have decided there is a way to rid +myself of her. + +"Mallare ... Mallare is no more. Madness jostles him off the scene. He +annihilated a world and a new monster sprang up in its place. + +"My words return. Ah, tired warriors covered with the grime of +battle--they troop back to my mind out of the dark. Mallare returns. But +what a caricature! See him like a fanatic priest driving the devil out +of his soul with whips. + +"This would be a God, this hermaphroditic prostitute who fondles himself +at night. Mallare ... weep. Whips will not rid you of this monster. +Mallare, the plaything. + +"But there is a way to be rid of her. Hate will darken the gleam of her +body. She will vanish. But do I hate her? My madness is infatuated since +it makes her so radiant. And who am I that I laugh at my madness? It is +I who am insane. Not this other Eden maker whose mania I applauded. I, +Mallare, tear at my hair. + +"I look in the mirror over my bed. Eyes red and gleaming look back at +me. This is my face, but I am no longer there. And whose are these eyes +looking back at me? The eyes of Mallare's friend, red and gleaming. His +friend who betrayed him. Hair slanting over a forehead. Mouth wide and +thin. No longer mine. They belong to the mirror. Mallare's words whimper +before them. + +"Weep ... weep, impotent one. The feet of your madness walk solemnly +over you. They kick gravely at a carcass. Lie beneath them and watch +Mallare dance away, whirl away with lecherous shadows in his arms. But +she will die too. I am thinking of death. Mallare the egoist asks alms +of death! + +"Windows break inside me. I look out of broken windows. I am gone and +away. Empty rooms. My hands feel walls. Mallare asks pity of darkness. +Pity him." + + + + +[Illustration: Sixth Drawing] + + + + +[VI] + + +She sat looking out of the window. He had gone away early in the +morning. It was growing dark now. The cold street dwindled. Windows +lighted up. People that looked from the distance like black toys moved +through the darkening street. + +She could tell when he came because his walk was different. The hours +built pointed roofs to her dream. She played behind happy walls but her +eyes remained outside, watching from the window. + +This was part of a game--to hide away and wait. To put on her clothes +carefully in the morning; bright silks and petticoats and a dress on +top; jewels on her fingers; bracelets and earrings; gold bands through +her hair. To make her cheeks red and paint black lines in her eyes; then +paint her lips and fingers red--these things hid her. She must be hidden +when he came--concealed behind paints and clothes so that when he looked +at her it would be someone else he saw. + +A tall man with black hair. His face was white. His eyes were silent and +hidden. But when they looked at her they screeched like parrots. They +ruffled up and yellow points came into them. + +He liked to walk up and down pretending she was nowhere, pretending +there was no Rita, pretending he was looking for her. Then she ran +around and one by one she took off the things--the dress, the +petticoats, the silks, the jewels and bracelets and gold bands. Each one +she took off was for him. It was a game. She came out of hiding places. +Each one she took off was a secret she confessed to him. + +She sat at the window dreaming of the ways she belonged to him. Her +thought was a pantomime which prostrated itself before his memory. She +remembered sacrifices.... He would lie cold in his bed. Then she crawled +to his side. She dared not look at his eyes. They were above her and +kept themselves hidden. She vanished before the thought of them. + +Then his body grew warm under her hands. Her lips made his body tremble. +He was white and naked like her. He was a fire to which she fed herself. +The moment came when there was no longer any Rita. A little ember lay +burning happily in his passion. + +When he fell asleep she went away. In her own bed she lay dreaming words +that were like hiding places. Only he could lure her out of them. After +he fell asleep she carried memories of him into herself.... He had +smiled. His body had shivered. His fingers had clutched at her face. He +had picked her up and fought with her. When he did this it was as if he +lifted her to his eyes and she could look at him--as if the wind lifted +the flames about. + +The street was dark. But he would come soon. He only stayed away till it +grew dark. Now it was his time again. The street and all the lights +would open the door and come into the room. And she would be waiting, +hidden away. It was exciting to wait. It was the way he kissed her--by +making her wait and pretending when he came that there was no Rita. + +The night was like a story that frightened. As she watched from the +window she remembered the caravan along the roads. Fires and dark faces +and red handkerchiefs. The night along the roads changed the trees into +birds that flew away. The wagons went to sleep. Everyone slept but Rita. +The horses had dreams and whispered to themselves. + +Along the roads where the caravan stopped there would be a fire at night +to watch. Rita sat alone looking at the flames. Dreams came out of the +fire and walked away. Then, hours afterward, they came back when the +fire was low. They stood around the coals and finally crawled into the +ground. Darkness remained. The wagons became ghosts. She grew sad and +wanted to go away with the night like the dreams that crept back into +the dead fire. + +Now his eyes were like the hiding places she had wished. She trembled. +He was coming. She could see him out of the window, walking slowly in +the street below. She closed her eyes. + +The door opened and her heart bowed itself. Her fingers, stiffened with +colored rings, pressed at her breasts. Now there was a game to play. He +walked up and down pretending Rita was hidden. He was cold and far away. +His face walked like a dead man back and forth in the room. Goliath +shuffled as fast as he could and hid himself in the curtains. She +crouched in the chair, her knees drawn up, her eyes cringing with +delight. + +She could watch his face. When he was far away she had further to go to +reach him, and each step was like a kiss she gave him. His anger, his +words, his cold face and his hands striking her were wild roads down +which she ran toward a fire that waited. + +He paid no attention but walked up and down and his eyes ignored her. +But he would begin to talk soon. She would undress for him. One by one, +rings, bands of gold, silks and petticoats--each that came off was like +a part of her already burning. + +She stood up naked. Only she was left now. Her body caressed her with +its desires. She must go on undressing. There was something more to give +him. She would remove something of herself--her arms, her breasts, her +white thighs. She gave these to him with her dresses and jewels. They +were things for him to burn up. + +He was looking at her because she had crawled to his feet. This was when +he began to talk to her--when she placed her arms around his feet and +bent her head to the floor. + +"Yours," she whispered. + +He was motionless and far away and tall above her. He stood like the +night. His white face was the cold moon. She waited and heard the wind +blow against the windows. She waited for him to grow warm. + +His hands lifted her up. He held them around her neck, his fingers +tightening. She opened her eyes and loved him. He talked to her. She +listened and wished to die in his hands, if he desired her, if it would +make his eyes smile at her. + +But his fingers loosened and he threw her down. She lay smiling on the +floor as he walked away. He went on talking, louder and louder. His +voice was like a sword swinging. He was angry. His words were soft and +quick. + +She looked up only when he laughed. He was standing against the red +curtains laughing. His finger was pointing to her. He stood watching her +with his eyes screeching like parrots and laughing as he pointed. + +Kneeling, she covered her face with her hands. His laughter came nearer. +His hands began to strike. Pain leaped to greet them. Pain, like wings, +raised her body to his eyes. His hands were striking and tearing. They +played a game with her body. + +Candles lighted in her head. He was laughing and throwing himself +against her. She felt blood come out of her and cover her with little +flames. But he would let her come close soon. After he had struck her +and become like a fire she would crawl close to him and he would let her +give herself, what was left of herself. + +His hands knocked her down again and she lay without moving. He was +still laughing and pulling at her. She kneeled and covered her face. Her +head kept nodding at him. + +Now she would die. He would devour her. Her body fell and rose as if he +were swinging her around his head. His hands drove nails through her +breasts. Her voice ran away from her and screamed. But she continued to +nod her head and to come toward him out of the hiding places. His blows +were binding her body with red ropes. But soon she would lie against him +and give herself to his passion. She would feel his body burning from +the blows he had given her. She closed her eyes and screamed. He grew +larger and she was no longer able to understand the pain.... + +When she awoke Goliath was bending over her. He was whispering +excitedly. Sunlight made red shadows in the room. + +"Where is he?" she asked. + +She slid to the floor and then stood up carefully. Pain halted her and +she moaned. But her eyes continued to hunt the room. + +"Where is he?" she asked again. + +Goliath watched her and his head rolled excitedly. She straightened and +dragged herself to the door of his room. It was empty. + +"Mallare," she cried. Her hands beat against her head, "Mallare." + +Goliath remained watching her naked figure stumbling through the rooms +as she called the name. She returned to the couch and threw herself face +down. She lay moaning and tearing the cushions with her fingers. + +He had gone away. He had beaten her not because he loved. He hated her. +And he had taken himself away from her. She understood. He no longer +wanted her. He had laughed and tried to kill her. + +With a scream she rushed into his bedroom and threw herself against the +unused pillows. Her arms struck at them. She began to talk aloud in the +language she knew. + +"Gone away, gone away," she cried. "I am yours and you gone away." + +But words were too involved. She beat at the pillows and screamed. When +he came back she would kill him. While he sat in his chair writing she +would creep close and drive a knife. That was what would happen to him +because he no longer loved her and because he had beaten her to say +goodbye. + +It was day outside. When it grew dark again he would come back. She +would wait, but not as before. She was no longer his. + +In her room Rita bathed herself and searched for her old clothes. She +found them hidden--the wide dress with red and yellow stripes, the many +blue and scarlet petticoats that she had worn when he brought her home +from the caravan; the long black earrings, the green and orange shawl +for her head. She put these on. They hid the vivid marks on her body. + +Dressed in her gypsy clothes she came into the room again. It would be +long to wait. But darkness would come and then he would open the door +again. She lay down on the couch and sighed. + + + + +[Illustration: Seventh Drawing] + + + + +[VII] + + +Mallare, wrapped in a heavy overcoat, his hands in thick gloves, walked +from his door into the street. The cold straightened him. The deserted +night mirrored itself in a thin coating of snow that overlay the +roof-tops. + +"They sleep," he thought. His head bent toward the wind. "The streets +are empty. The night is mine. I must think of what has happened. There +is something inexplicable in what has happened. My hands fought with a +phantom. That, of course, is nonsense. + +"How do I know my hands fought? Merely because I remember them +striking. Yet that may have been an illusion too! Then why are my hands +tired? Why do my arms ache? Another illusion, of course. Logic is +independent of truth. Logic is the persuasive repetition of ideas by +which man hypnotizes himself. I must beware of logic. It will but tie me +hopelessly to hallucination. I must think without evidence. I do not +know anything. What I see, hear, smell, touch is nothing. I can no +longer summon my senses as witnesses. + +"And is that unusual? I must sink to moralizings in order to understand +myself. What is reality but the habit of illusion. Man sees the +unexpected once and identifies it as hallucination. He sees it twice and +calls it phenomenon. But if he acquired the habit of seeing the +unexpected, he accepts it as reality. + +"In the same manner in which he builds phantoms into furniture, converts +his Gods into sciences, his myths into laws; in that way he also reduces +his furniture into phantoms. He converts his emotions into music, his +nervous disorders into literature, his three elemental desires into +thought. He is continually holding a mirror to nature and worshipping +the childish phantoms within the mirror. + +"This is the basis of egoism--the mania to change realities into +unreality. Because man is the tool of reality. Of unreality he is the +God. It is this desire to dominate which inspires him to avoid truths +over which he has no sway and to invent myths. Gods and virtues over +which he may set himself up as creator and policeman. It is this which +causes him to cloud the simplicities of nature in a maze of +interpretations. It is by his interpretations that he achieves the +illusion of importance. Ignored by the planets, he invents the myth of +mathematics and reduces the universe to a succession of fractions and +Greek letters on a blackboard. + +"This, of course, for man the egoist. The more humorous spectacle is the +one in which man finds himself awed by his own lies. His Gods, his +myths, his phantoms come home to roost. He stands blinking in a +veritable storm of lies. His yesterday's lies, his today's lies, his +tomorrow's lies--all his obsolete interpretations, his canonized +interpretations; all his systems, his philosophies; all his Gods and +Phantoms--these riot and war around him. Error endlessly assassinates +itself in a futile effort to escape its immortality. + +"And in the midst of this horrendous confusion, stands man--naive and +powerless. But he has his sanity. He blows it up carefully like a soap +bubble and strikes a defiant posture in its center. And against the +walls of his bubble, his phantoms storm in vain. Within his bubble he +proceeds calmly to assert himself." + +It was snowing. The night, white with snow, stared like a blind man. A +phantom world hung in the air. Houses and street withdrew silently. The +snow covered them. Mallare walked on, staring into the heavy weave of +flakes. + +"A great white leopard prowling silently," he murmured. "It snows. The +moon has come down and walks beside me. The wind blows and the moon +gallops away on a white horse. A gentle annihilation. The night has +fallen asleep and this is a dream that pirouettes in its head. The +street becomes a bridal couch. + +"Ah, the snow is like my madness. It snows, snows. I climb silently +among soft branches and white leaves. Delirium sleeps with a finger to +its pale lips. I must continue to think. The storm hangs like a +forgotten sorrow in my heart. But my thought persists. It crawls like a +little wind through the forgotten storm. It rides carefully from flake +to flake. + +"I overtake myself. What a quaint imbecile I am. Or rather, was. In my +effort to emancipate myself from life, I succeeded only in handing +myself over to my senses. And my senses, I perceive, belong not to me +but to the procreative principles of biology. They have been loaned to +me by a master chemist. When I die my cherished soul will disintegrate +into nothing. It will become a useless thing. It will unquestionably go +to a Heaven which is as non-existent as itself. Heaven is the emptiness +into which souls vanish. Very good. But my senses, these are immortal. +They will, in some inexplicable way, I am certain, continue their idiot +career. + +"I must consider them. I have learned one thing. They are indifferent to +reality and unreality. They contain life within themselves. All that +exists outside them is extraneous--shadows among which they divert +themselves. + +"The hallucination that overpowered me but never seduced my intelligence +became a reality to them. She was a shadow with which my senses diverted +themselves. Then why do I look upon the business as illogical? The +illogical thing is not that I feel tired from striking her who had no +tangible existence, but that I should be able to reason beyond the reach +of my senses. Yes, that I should succeed in wresting them from their +prey. For the shadows with which the senses divert themselves are +tyrants they may never hope to abandon. Man is at the mercy of his +phantoms. Behold, I arrive at a conclusion which means I am bored with +the subject. + +"I prefer the snow. But there is time for the snow. I must establish +premises. Climb out of the abyss on a ladder of premises. What did I +say about logic? Oh, yes, the persuasive repetition. One flake remains +invisible. A thousand flakes are of no account. It is only when the +flakes repeat themselves too endlessly for my eye to distinguish that I +finally ignore them and walk contentedly in a storm. Thus with logic. +When I have surrounded myself with an infinity of assurances, my error +vanishes in the constant repetition of itself. And I am reassured. And +sane. + +"Yet I must think simply. The snow seduces me into fellow labyrinths. +I've destroyed her. My senses were in love with her. They responded to +her kisses. She was a Thought able to ravish my body. This is what the +pathologists would identify as a triumph of the psychic sex center. What +charming palaverers--the pathologists! Man crawls in a circle around +himself and fancies himself an invader--a pathologist. + +"A matter of no interest. What I have done, as the Christian Scientists +ably put it, is to rid myself of this Thought. But why was it necessary +to strike at it with my hands, to tear it with my fingers? This worries +me. But did I do these things? I must convince myself that I didn't. I +remember sinking my hands into her body, pulling at her flesh. I +remember blows given. She screamed. I struck her and flung her down. +These things I recall. + +"But they do not interfere with my convictions. For of what are they +proof? The blows I gave were no more than a shrewd make-believe. To my +senses she was real, and it was necessary therefore to destroy her +realistically. It was easy for my mind to ignore this Thought. I was +never its victim. I merely created it. My senses that belong to life and +not to me, however, became victimized. + +"I do not recall myself as a spectator of the struggle. I remember it +now as I might remember participating in an honest fight. A very clever +ruse. It is evident I loaned myself. I surrendered adroitly to my +idiotic senses. Therefore for that hour I was completely mad. What +happened in the room? Ah, what a grotesque memory it makes. Mallare +knocking his fists against the air. Mallare throwing himself around like +an epileptic. Sinking his fingers into nothing--a shadow boxer +pummelling frenziedly at space. That was madness. + +"But it served its purpose. For I've destroyed her. Rita, Rita is gone. +Yet there's a curious twist in that. I am lacking one memory. One very +important memory hides from me. I calculate its time and place, but, +like a recalcitrant comet, it fails to enter the appointed void. Alas, I +no longer remember killing her in the street. + +"But I am certain I did. Why, certain? Because my logic establishes the +fact. Still, I would feel better about something, if my memory were more +docile. But what is memory? The soul of dead illusion. Since it +withholds itself, I will create a memory. + +"There was a lamp shining over my head. I was walking. And then I stood +still. Oh, yes, shadows. I grew eloquent with shadows. And she appeared +in the midst of this eloquence. My hands choked her. She had followed me +into the street and I choked her. But I do not remember this. At least, +the thing grows elusive and unsatisfactory. Why? Ah, the snow covers me. +I will cover my confusion with a sigh like the snow. + +"No, I see the thing now. Was she ever real? There were gypsy wagons and +an old man. A camp fire and this girl with the green and orange shawl. +Yes, these were realities. But how do I know? Hm, I place my finger on +the sore spot. There is a point where reality and unreality meet. And +this point has vanished from my mind. I pursue it. A matter of +remarkable importance. It evades me; therefore I will arbitrarily locate +it. The point between reality and unreality is the arc lamp in the +street. Up to that point Rita was real. I killed her at that point and +she became unreal. This statement cures me. Nevertheless, my sanity is a +myth. I have invented it, by arbitrarily identifying the moment of its +departure. But it is better that way than to blunder on without knowing +how mad I am or whether I am mad at all, or whether I ever have been +mad. A lie believed in is an antidote for confusion. + +"It doesn't matter. Excellent logic. She is destroyed. And I am none the +worse, except for a disillusion more--and an uncertainty. My uncertainty +is removed by logic, or at least concealed by it. And I am sane. I +return to life--another Napoleon walking backwards. My experiments have +led me around a circle. I meet myself where I started, but naked of +hopes. + +"It snows and I am amiable. Something has happened. My hatred, where is +that? This street is pleasant. The light of the snow cheers me. I am, in +fact, buoyant. Ah, I understand. A balloon come down to earth and vain +once more of its buoyancy--its ability to bob along the pavement. + +"It is curious. I delude myself that I am thinking. But my alleged +thoughts do not further my ideas. They merely convert them into little +pictures easy for me to understand and diverting to look at. + +"Still, if I am happy ... but how does one know one is happy? I suspect +my happiness. It is a clown's suit in which my mourning disguises +itself. Mallare has fallen out of his black heaven. And he picks himself +up like a good burgher. He grunts and chuckles and looks at the skies, +alas, without curiosity. Lucifer, fallen, finds diversion as a janitor +in red tights. Ergo, I have proved something. I am in Hell and with +Lucifer I know its secret--happiness. + +"Where is Mallare who fancied himself a madman? Who sought to climb over +his senses and found himself impaled by a tower of Babel? Where are his +angers, his disgusts that were the noble shadows thrown by his egoism to +blot out a world? Ballad of rhetorical questions. My vanity preens +itself with reminiscences. I smile. I am depressed and content. Answers +whisper. Mallare is on his feet. His experiments are ended. His mania to +possess himself is a snow that falls forgotten in his past. Vale, the +lunatic. Vale, the man in the moon. Ave, Mallare. + +"It snows. I walk. I think. I smile. And this too for a time is a +diversion--that people no longer distract me. I carelessly restore the +world. Let there be people, I say. And, alas, there are. I abdicate. I +hand my Godhood back to the race. + +"Morning begins like another snow in the distance. Ah, here comes one +tired-eyed out of a house. It is astounding to think that he is human +like myself. He and I are actors in the same play, yet ignorant of each +other's lines. But I may guess at his part. He is frightened. He looks +furtively toward me. And he walks rather lamely. Aha, a fornicator! He +has left a warm bed, illegally occupied for the night. A woman in a +rumpled night dress moaned under him. The plot is simple. How pleasing +it was for a moment. She came so close. She was like an incredibly +intimate secret. He gasped physiological instructions. And--finis! The +captains and the kings depart. The recessional of the douche! Do you +love me yet, do you love me yet? + +"And now he walks in the cold street. He must hurry away. There are +complications, but they make a minor drama. Off stage business. He is +aware of contrasts. A moment ago--her arms, her gasps. A moment ago +warmth, intimacy. And now, the snow, the cold, and life. Memory like +fool's gold jingles in his pocket. Life is real, life is earnest. He +regrets his orgasms. They will interfere with business. + +"The male rampant! What a sinister comedian! The mythical despoiler. Hm, +his head bows down. The snow disturbs him. Sad, weary, remorseful, he +drags himself home. He has lessened his virility and it worries him. +There is a plot in this. Some day I will write it out--a love story of +the sexes. Poor, weary one, he has enriched Delilah. + +"Ah, I am amused. It will be pleasant to observe people once more. +Sanity has its rewards. Its laughter is a charming hint of madness that +one may enjoy harmlessly. + +"What a lecherous spectacle a row of dark houses is! Bedrooms filled +with bodies--incredible nudities. Bed springs creaking. The hour of +asterisks. Window blinds down. Doors locked. Lights out. The city +lingers in the snow like a feeble burlesque. Houses and shops and street +car tracks gesture reprovingly. Civilization bows its head in the night +like an abandoned bride. Man, like an ape hunting fleas, preoccupies +himself again with his nerve centers. + +"Darkened houses, silence--Rabelais and Boccaccio debate the immaculate +conception. Eros, patron saint of the laundryman, conducts ancient +rituals. + +"Ah, these indefatigable and unctuous fornicators, rolling their eyes +piously between orgasms; embroidering noble mottoes on their pleasure +towels! [These prim exquisites, carefully and with raised eyebrows, +folding their toilet paper into proper squares!] Who can be angry with +them? God drove them out of Paradise--punishment enough. They revenge +themselves with a monotonous enthusiasm. Ah, these fellatian moralists! +It is folly to take their hypocrisies to heart. The plot is too +delicious for tears. These two-fisted citizens, these purity braggarts +masturbating with one finger unemployed and pointing scornfully at their +neighbors! + +"Charming street. It offers consolations, simple ones, to be sure. But +nevertheless, consolations. My madness was not as mad as this dark +street. This is a prettier witches' night than the one I aspired to. I +am amused and my amusement is an insult that inspires me. If one cannot +become God, one can at least sit and sneer happily at the handiwork of +his rival. + +"The dawn comes into my head. Poor Mallare, who must readjust his +vocabulary to coherences. The night flies away. How simple this little +scene becomes. Mysteries vanish. Doors open. Window blinds raise +themselves. And now people stick their heads out into the cold. Wagons, +trucks, crowds begin. They hurry to work, older by a night. + +"My sanity laughs at them, but sadly. I detect an obligato to my mirth. +The comedy is poignant only because I am a part of it. These hurrying +ones with their tired faces and eager shoulders are my brothers and +sisters sharing with me the spectacle they make. They are a +disillusioning mirror in which I see myself a million times. Yes, they +look back at me, and their weariness, their hopelessness saddens me. Man +sees himself by gazing into the world--and is overcome. It is only a +lunatic who can keep merry in the face of so monstrous an image. + +"My happiness is without merriment. I return quickly. I have already the +habit of coherence. In a few hours I will go back again and begin with +canvas and paint once more. My madness is a lost argument. I am a little +tired. But, alas, he who has danced and slept with Medusa goes home +weary. + +"It will take time before my amusement ripens into rages. And without +rages work is impossible. I will wait. Now I am too indifferent for +anything but happiness. It is easy to walk and forget one's self and +one's senses. It will come back. Mallare will return and expend himself +naively in decorations once more. + +"When I am strong again I will hunt up a woman. Poor Rita, whom I have +murdered twice, illustrating the paradox of possession. Man, the slave +of his senses, possesses only what his five masters offer him as gifts. + +"I will find a clever one this time whom jests do not frighten. One who +does not burn incense before her vagina and cover it with an altar +piece. How unctuously women embrace ideas which increase the value and +importance of their urinal ducts! Modesty, morality, prurience, piety, +are the effulgent underwear behind which they increase the mystery and +charm of the mons veneris. Alas, they are the artists of sex and not +men. Man has even thrown away the seductive cod-piece. The origins of +ideas are varied and multiple. But whatever their origins, it is women +who utilize them. What an incredible sex! Vaginomaniacs. + +"I will hunt up a vulgar woman, one who does not piously regard her +vulva as an orifice to be approached with Gregorian chants. I must be +careful to avoid those veteran masturbators marching heroically under +the gonfalons of virginity. It is a difficult business, finding a woman. +A modest one will offend my intellect. A shameless one will harass my +virility. A stupid one will be unable to appreciate my largess. An +intelligent one will penetrate my impotency. + +"But why women? The devil take them all. I am almost tired of the +disillusions they have to offer. The homely ones go away grateful for +something they never received. The pretty ones go away chuckling +secretly over something they never gave. It is a confused and +unintelligible waste of time. It will be enough to paint, to talk, to +sip tea, to wander about proselyting in behalf of improvised Gods. I +will divert myself, making love to women out of range of their bedrooms. +I will engage them conversationally and ravish them with erect and +quivering adjectives. It is not necessary to undress a woman to know +her. She reveals herself almost as piquantly in moods. I will be the +father of moods. And, as a recreation, I will sit and watch the days in +their unchanging flight. I bristle with rhetoric. It is a symptom of +sanity. I am grateful for this ability to bore myself." + +It was morning. Mallare paused against a window. He stood, staring into +the life of the street. His eyes were drawn and the corners of his wide, +thin mouth smiled feebly. + +Snow was falling. The morning dissolved itself. Traffic drifted busily +and without sound behind the snow--an excited pantomime that filled the +air with misplaced, ventriloquial whispers. + +Mallare remained smiling into the gentle storm. Snow covered his head +and shoulder. + +"The snow falls," he thought tiredly. "It snows, snows. White flakes +lose themselves and are grateful for the earth. An invisible ending that +flatters them. Well, I have walked all night and rid myself of wisdoms. +I am hungry. It's possible I haven't eaten for months. In order to eat, +however, I need money." + +He slipped one of the gloves from his hand and felt in his pocket. A +satisfied smile came to his eyes. + +"Excellent," he thought. "Or I would have celebrated my sanity by +starving to death." + +Withdrawing his hand from his pocket, he found himself regarding it. It +grinned back at him like a stranger. It was red. + +"Blood," he murmured. His eyes glanced quickly around and he replaced +the glove. He continued to walk. + +"Blood," he repeated to himself. The word made an ending in his thought. +He walked slowly staring at it. His silence lifted. A voice crept into +him and began to speak from a distance. + +"Careful," it murmured. "Be cautious. Remember you were mad. You had +almost forgotten. There is something to think about, now. You will walk +slowly and think. It's not as easy as it seemed. Be careful. + +"Your fists fought with a phantom. Blows, wild blows. The grotesque +memory--the madman pummelling the air. That was you. And your hands are +bruised. They've been bleeding. Her breasts and head were something +else. Your fists struck mercilessly at chairs and walls. When your hands +are washed you will find bruises over them that have been bleeding." + +He walked on nodding his head slowly. Later he stopped. The snow was +piling itself over the grass of a small park. The swollen shapes of +trees and benches rested in the storm. + +Mallare sat down on a bench and removed his gloves. Both hands were red. +Smiling tiredly, he began to rub them with the snow. His eyes waited as +the color dissolved. His hands were clean. He looked at them and +nodded. + +"There are no bruises," he murmured. "The blood came from something +else." + +He paused and watched the snow. + +"It is curious," he whispered aloud. "Then I am still mad. Careful ... +mad. For there was blood ... and not mine. So it would seem I have been +seducing myself with optimisms. A true madman. Yes, a lunatic mumbling +excitedly to himself in the snow all night, saying: + +"Sane. Mallare is quite sane." + +He laughed softly. + +"Oh, yes. I'm too clever for you, Mallare. Very much too clever. You +present a pair of red hands to me. I wash them carefully in the snow. +They become white. Interesting phenomena." + +He chuckled softly and stared at the snow and swollen trees. + +"The old circle again," he murmured. "And I begin the absorbing hide and +go seek with my senses. Who am I and where do I end? And who are they +and where do they begin? Let us study the phenomenon of red hands. +Primo--how do I know there was blood? My eyes said, 'blood.' And the +snow is red. But that is only because my eyes, infatuated with an idea, +repeat the information. + +"But I, Mallare, who am no madman's pawn, no lickspittle secretary to my +senses, I say, 'no blood.' I am the Pope. I excommunicate the +phenomenon. + +"Ah, if there is blood, I fought with one who could bleed. And even my +cleverness could not supply arteries in a phantom. Ergo, there is no +blood. I am still mad. I see that which is not. But it is nothing to be +disturbed about. In fact, it is a diversion." + +The snow slowly covered the figure of Mallare. His drawn eyes balanced +themselves amid the flakes. + +"It snows, snows," he murmured after a pause. "And I remember something. +What is it I think! Rita ... Yes, there would be blood if Rita were ... +Hm, the murdered one. There was something I didn't remember while I +walked. + +"I can't. Not that way. Careful, Mallare. Be careful. There are thoughts +impossible to think. Yes, impossible." + +Again silence filled him. His drawn eyes widened. + +"Mallare," he whispered, "you are a madman. I know. This chokes. Yes. It +was I--I, Mallare. It is I who have been mad. I have been mad myself. +Not you. No, not you! But the God--the Strange Pose. I can't. An +impossible denouement. My head breaks. Her blood ... Rita." + +He stared open mouthed at a question that circled toward him out of the +snow. Words babbled in his head. He shook himself away from them and +stared. + +"She was alive!" he cried aloud. "My phantom lived. It was I who was the +phantom. And she--alive!" + +His face whitened, his eyes remained inanimate and gleaming with terror. +Then the figure of Mallare fell forward and lay curved in the snow. + + + + +[Illustration: Eighth Drawing] + + + + +[VIII] + +_From the Journal of Mallare dated January._ + + +"I am the one who contemplates. I am the Knowing One. There is nothing I +do not know. It is amazing to be Mallare. I have triumphed over five +worlds. I look down upon a rabble of Mallares. There are five +Mallares--five sullen looking madmen. One of them sits and listens to +voices. Another of them wanders about, staring with sad eyes at +intolerable visions. Another of them lies on his back, babbling +excitedly with the darkness. Another of them eats and sleeps like a +prosperous grocer. And there is a fifth Mallare who weeps. A baffling +rogue who puts his arms around me and blubbers on my shoulder like a +lodge brother. He says nothing, and of them all I dislike him the most. + +"His silence is mysterious. His tears are uncomfortable. A distressing +ass, weeping, blubbering. He implores me. Aha, I have it. I know his +secret. He is memory--a memory of myself following me around like a +heart-broken mother a wayward son. + +"Five Mallares, five sinister comedians to entertain me. And I, what can +I call myself--pure reason? No, a disgusting title. Rather, Unreason, +since I am after all the Indifferent One. But all this is a quibble +inspired by modesty. I am God. I am that which men have worshipped--the +aloof one, the pitiless and amused one. + +"The five tribes of Mallare rage and curse beneath me, fill the air with +profanations, weep and gibber in the night. But I sit inviolate and wait +for them--even for that blubbering one whose tongue is thick with tears +and whose idiot eyes implore me--and they return. They raise their faces +to me, their God, and fall prostrate before my smile. + +"Yes, it is the weeping one who causes me the most trouble. A reluctant +worshipper who annoys me. He clings like another phantom. A meddlesome +imbecile who keeps buttonholing me and pouring out tales of woe. And who +keeps my name on his lips. I can see it moving on his lips. But he is +dumb. I have his secret though. This dumb one came to me in the snow. I +was faint. Hunger had thrown me to the ground. When I stood up he was +beside me. His lips moved excitedly but they made no sound. And we +walked home together. + +"'Who is this pathetic intruder?' I thought. 'He walks beside me +gesturing with his lips and weeping, weeping. He falls on my neck and +embraces me. His eyes roll with panic. What new variant of madness is +this?' + +"It is curious that of all the Mallares he alone is speechless. The +others keep up their incessant babbling and screaming--true citizens of +Bedlam. But this dumb one who attached himself to me in the snow, even +his lips have stopped moving now, except to form my name slowly as he +blubbers on my shoulder. + +"I am kind to him and forgiving. I smile. I even coax him to speak, to +move his lips once more. In the snow when he followed me home I was able +to detect words his silence spoke. + +"'Blood on your hands,' he repeated. 'Think, think, Mallare.' + +"I humored him and looked at my hands. They were clean. And I answered +him soothingly. + +"'You are an interesting quirk,' I said. 'My senses that fancy they have +killed a woman have given birth to an illusion of guilt. And you are +that illusion. My madness dresses itself in logic like a fishwife +hanging rhinestones in her hair. + +"'Be calm,' I said, 'Mallare has slain only a phantom, and the murder of +illusions is a highly respectable privilege whose exercise is rewarded +on earth as well as in heaven.' + +"But this creature was not to be diverted from himself. + +"'He is another one of them,' I thought. 'He walks and implores and +wrings his hand and babbles, 'blood, blood that was real.' And there is +nothing to be done with him. Another pathologic symptom asks the +hospitality of Mallare, and I must make the proper pretense of +graciousness and cordiality. + +"'But first I must identify my guest. Take his measure out of the corner +of my eye and understand him. Very well, I have been the victim of a +hallucination which my senses accepted as real. And which I was able to +murder only by pretending I too believed it real. Therefore, having +committed this illusory crime, there results this illusory sense of +guilt.' + +"And thus we walked home, this dumb one and I, his absurd grief +confusing me. I will confess. My name on his lips frightened me at +first. As it sometimes does now. For he has become more than an illusion +of guilt. He is, this sly fellow, a memory, inarticulate and envious. +He envies me because I am clever enough to laugh at my madness. However, +I will consider him later, in his various guises, for of all the +Mallares, dumb though he is and ludicrous with inane tears, he interests +me the most. + +"We walked home and I finally fell to belaboring him. A pest, a +mendicant, a croaking idiot--I cursed him out roundly and refused him +further attention. This is the wisest course sometimes. It is dangerous +to humor too carelessly these sprawling Mallares. They are slyly at war +with my omnipotence. I can understand the anger of God. Sacrilege +confuses Him. And We are all alike--We Gods. We are forced into an +attitude of indifference in order that We may keep Ourselves +intact. Thus We look down with Consummate dispassion upon Our +hallucinations--Our worlds. And it is this dispassion that men worship +in Us, unable to understand Our lack of interest and terrified by Our +aloofness they prostrate themselves before an infinite mystery. + +"Yet, though the theology of God has become the secret of My unreason, I +find Myself dangerously susceptible. It is when I seek to appease My +loneliness by raising one of the babbling ones to My side. He enters My +black heaven with a pretense of gratitude, fawning before Me and +accepting My fellowship with humility. There follows then a moment of +insidious diversion. Slowly a confusion fills Me. Yes, even I am open to +confusion. It is a pity I have for the babbling one. + +"I listen to his complaints. The sad-eyed Mallare staring at intolerable +visions. Mallare, the dark chatterer. Or this other one--My friend the +weeping lodge brother. Yes, I pity them and soothe them. But I find +Myself singularly moved. Their prayers move Me. They begin to whisper +that I return with them. I am tempted to follow them, to let them take +My hand and lead Me into their strange houses. + +"But I smile in time and My smile, fixed and profound, overcomes them. +They prostrate themselves once more before the mystery of My +indifference. And I remain the God of Mallare. + +"On this day the dumb one sprawled along home with me, there were many +curious things happened. I had walked all night in the snow weary with +hunger. Rita, who had driven me into a moment of fury--I had destroyed +her for the time. A strange destruction during which I pummelled the air +like a veritable madman. But the ruse had served to rid me of the +hallucination for the night. Finally, tired with walking and hunger, I +fell from a bench in the park. + +"When I awoke I recalled at once the grotesque struggle of the night. +And with this dumb, weeping creature dogging my steps, I returned home. +She was still with me. I smiled, although I confess there was despair in +my thought. For I had fancied the miserable business of the night had +put an end to the hallucination. No, she was still there. She was +waiting for me on the couch. + +"But my mind had not deceived itself. It was as I had thought. I had +planned to rid myself of her by hating this phantom until my hate had +darkened it. Then there would be nothing but an imperceptible shadow of +her remaining, one with which my senses could no longer seduce +themselves. + +"And when I came into the room I saw my plot was working. For her eyes +no longer gleamed. A radiance had left her. + +"'My hate begins to operate upon this chimera,' I thought. I frowned at +her and sat down, worn out with the walking of the night. + +"'I have undermined the infatuation of this phantom,' I thought. I would +have been elate but it occurred to me there was an inconsistency. This +dumb one, this sniveling one, persisted. 'And how should he, who was +dependent upon her death for his existence, persist in her presence?' +This was a question for Mallare, the indifferent one. This was a query +to answer. + +"Ah, I will write more about this blubberer, for the answer to him is +piquantly involved. It is like a head with too many hats. But not +now--I will not write about him now. I will only bear him in mind. + +"She watched me from the couch and I became aware of something. I +studied her cautiously. Her eyes no longer gleamed with love. There was +a radiance absent. + +"'Aha,' I thought, 'she hates. Mallare recovers the strings to his +Frankenstein. His puppet dances again to his will. See, my senses no +longer leap to her. They tremble warily before the hate in her eyes.' + +"I watched her as she watched me. And then an incredible thing happened. +She arose from the couch and came slowly toward me and she held a knife +in her hand. She came toward me with the knife at her side. + +"'Clever,' I thought. 'In fact, a miracle of cleverness. This phantom +has gone mad. It is madder than I. It fancies itself able to slay me. It +advances upon me with its dagger of mist and it intends to fall upon me. +This mysterious logic that grows of itself like a fungus in darkness, +where will it end? Already it towers around me--a monstrous weed rising +out of my madness, and I am chilled by its shadow.' + +"And I continued to think: + +"'I desired to be rid of her. My desire finally overleaped my befuddled +senses. And now this desire has become a new soul for my phantom. Yet I +planned no details in my desire. I did not will this melodramatic +denouement. Then it is obvious that my desire is like a seed filled with +hidden life. I blow a thought into my phantom and that thought develops +and hatches. This is a phenomenon to be written about.' + +"As I thought she came closer and finally stood over me. Her eyes, I +observed, were completely mad. Yes, they were like horrible fires. And +her face was a marvel of mimicry. The cleverness of my thought appalled +me. I said nothing, however, and watched her. She began to talk. I had +become used to this phase of the hallucination. But this time my senses +shuddered at her words. They who had been so eager to sate themselves +in the possession of this chimera and who had betrayed my omnipotence, +they now suffered the penalty of their blindness. For it was evident +that to them, this chimera was still real. She was an avenger towering +with a knife above them. + +"But Mallare smiled. + +"'See,' he murmured aloud, 'here is the reward of your folly. You would +philander with this shadow. You would disport yourself in abominable +fornications with this hallucination. Very well, I am amused at your +clownish terror even more than I was amused at your burlesque ecstasies. +Tremble now for here is a Medusa, a Messalina come to destroy you. +Whimper and grovel, but observe in your idiot cowardice how Mallare, the +indifferent one, sits and smiles--still supreme, still a spectator +ravished by the dark comedy.' + +"I could not resist this moment of triumph. I laughed although there was +no one to enjoy my laughter. And I watched her. She was still talking, +deep, meaningless words. For it was her habit to talk in the gypsy +language when moved. Often this fact baffled me. But I perceive now that +my thought was a seed containing my omniscience in microcosm. God does +not invent languages but He understands them since it is unnecessary for +Him to know, in His indifference, what they are saying. And the language +my phantom spoke, although foreign to me, was nevertheless an integral +part of my thought--another of the manifestations with which God naively +astounds Himself. It is His only diversion. + +"I was curious concerning the effect upon my senses of this illusory +attack. And, I must confess these things simply, there came to me the +idea that Mallare might be slain by the cowardice of his senses. There +would be nothing illogical in that. For if this chimera had been able to +trick them into the illusion of love, it was entirely natural that it +should be able to trick them now into the illusion of death. With the +exception that death is an illusion even Mallare, the indifferent one, +might not survive. + +"Ah, Mallare, Mallare! He wanders pensively amid treacherous +shadows--Mallare--an image debating subtly the existence of its mirror. +I sigh. But it is one of the relaxations of God--to pity Himself His +uselessness. + +"Her talk came to an end and she raised her knife. Die or not, the thing +was too incredible a farce to leave me unmoved. Yes, I laughed out of +sheer delight. The drollery of this phantom hacking at Mallare with a +non-existent dagger ... a mad windmill charging Don Quixote! Superb! + +"I perceive now a moral in the situation that I did not think of at the +time. Sacrilege is a vital danger to God. His omnipotence is dependent +upon the submission of His creatures. And they who, inspired with the +quaint illusion of their own reality, turn upon Him--ah, they destroy +themselves. But their destruction impoverishes their God. + +"At the time, however, the spectacle alone and not its significances, +preoccupied me. I laughed and reached my hand to the dagger. A sadistic +gesture, for I desired to give my senses a taste of its reality and +thus enjoy their squirming. Marvelous dagger! The point of it was sharp. +Mallare can invent daggers, beautiful daggers that poise +melodramatically over his heart, that move slowly in quest of his life's +blood! S'death, a property man of parts! + +"'Clever dagger,' I murmured. 'Do you enjoy the illusion of yourself as +much as this chimera wielding you quivers with the illusion of impending +murder?' + +"It paused before me and I nodded. My laughter had halted it. It was +evident that my thought operating in this phantom was confused by my +laughter. I nodded again. + +"'It would be logical and extremely pleasant,' I thought, 'if this +creature, shrinking before the sacrilege of destroying its creator, +turned on itself and accomplished a more probable assassination.' + +"She stood before me and I was pleased to see her hatred increase. It +was amazingly vivid. I observed the viciousness of her features. Her +face had become contorted. Its fury was like a mask. But she had +dropped the knife. I could not refrain smiling an encouragement at +her--the naive applause an author bestows upon his puppets. + +"But the plot still contained surprises. Yes, astonishing denouements +began to crowd the stage. For she started to undress. Here was a trick +that baffled Mallare. I winced with distaste. + +"'The consistency which I have hitherto admired in my madness seems +rather dubious.' I thought. 'The melodrama of illusions grows too +improbable. This fine tragedy crumbles into the ludicrous. She forgets +her hate. She is again Rita, the infatuated one. A lightning change that +smacks of inferior vaudeville. She is about to undress and resume her +deplorable assaults upon my idiot senses. A poorly written business. I +have a notion to walk out.' + +"But I remained smiling at the absurdity, too tired to leave my chair. I +was pleased to notice that her nudity did not this time appeal to my +doting madness. This marked an improvement--a foretaste of victory. The +disintegration had begun. + +"Her body was interesting. It was covered with bruises. There were +stains on its flesh. At the sight of them the lodge brother, the +sniveling one who had followed me home in the snow, set up a veritable +caterwauling. Here was terrible evidence of the fellow's guilt. The +bruises of course. An accomplished penitent, this blubberer, able to +transform himself from a Sense of Homicidal Guilt into a mere feeling of +General Remorse. + +"She was not dead. Yet he lingered. And now, at the sight of her +bruises, he rushed forward with inferior regrets. He will bear study, +this weeping one. Of all the sprawling Mallares, he alone lacks logic. +But I will come to him later. The plot is more entertaining than this +incongruous spectator weeping and hissing out of turn. + +"She began to talk once more and wildly. The sense of it dawned on me. +She was calling Goliath. He came shuffling from his usual hiding +place--the curtains. A diverting little monster. I bear him no ill will. +Although I grow slightly envious of his madness. Yet his madness is a +terrific flattery. It is involved and piquant and one of the things that +remain for me to study cautiously. The madness of Goliath and, of +course, this gentleman Niobe. + +"He came out, a fact at the time that astonished me. For I had not been +aware of his madness. He stood with his bent and bulbous body shaking +and his hands resting like a baboon's on the floor. I was noticing the +excitement of his huge head when it came to me with a curious +feeling--he was looking at her. Yes, Goliath my servant was looking not +at me. But at her! + +"'Careful, Mallare, be careful,' I thought. The insane sniveling of this +lodge brother distracted me. His arms came around me and he rested his +head on me and wept. Insufferable ass! It was impossible to think. I +remained with my eyes watching and repeating cautiously to myself the +warning. + +"Here was a trick too baffling for Mallare. Mallare must suspend +himself, close his eyes and climb slowly back into his black heaven. + +"'Then Goliath too is a phantom,' I thought. 'But careful, be careful, +Mallare. That is too easy. And you remember. It is dangerous to hide +from too many memories. They will become shadows that nibble at you. He +is not a phantom. Goliath is no chimera. He lives. He has reality. + +"'Then how does it come,' I continued thinking, 'that he sees that which +is visible only to you? His eyes are fastened on her who is to be seen +only inside the caverns of Mallare. He raises his arms. His hands touch +her. I am imagining Goliath. Goliath is not in the room. This is a +memory of him that has wandered onto the scene of my madness.' + +"Here my thinking ended. I sat contemplating the imbecile, the +blubberer. He pressed himself upon me with his shameless importunings. +He snivelled and his lips moved with my name. I watched them say, +'Mallare' and repeat 'Mallare' till I grew dizzy with the pantomime of +my name. I will study this later and discover the secret of his lips. My +name drifting continually over them has a way of hypnotizing me. But +later--later. + +"I began thinking once more. + +"'This lodge brother weeps while Goliath takes liberties with my +phantom. There is a connection there. But it is unimportant for the +present. I must discover something else.' + +"Then, like a victory too long withheld, it came to me. He was mad. +Goliath, my servant, was mad. But more than that--a telepathic madness. +I have elaborated my understanding since. Goliath suffers from a +contagion. His constant attendance upon me has proved fatal to his +stupidity. His senses are the victims of my puppets. He has entered my +world and my madness creates for him, as it does for me, shadows that +deceive him. But there is no Mallare in him. Unlike me, he does not sit +in amused judgment upon himself. + +"It is an interesting phenomenon--this strange mesmerism. It remains to +be studied. Goliath and I are mad brothers. This understanding arrived +in time. Or else I would have flung myself in despair upon the +ever-imploring bosom of my lugubrious sniveler. + +"Rita was real to Goliath. I watched him excitedly and continued to +think. I addressed myself: + +"'Observe,' I said, 'here you have a distressing visualization. Goliath, +your dwarf, mimics your madness. And it is not pleasant to look at. His +eyes roll with passion. His fat lips chew upon lewd expectations. His +fingers raise themselves like frightened blasphemies to her breasts. And +he watches you. Yes, his eyes sneak glimpses of you. For you are his +rival! You and this nigger monster are vaginal comrades. It is pleasant +to see that you have the decency to feel enraged.' Five infatuated +Mallares sputtered and wept and gnashed their teeth. + +"As I talked I turned my attention to her. In my excitement over Goliath +I had ignored her. Her hands were fumbling with the clothes of this +doting rival. But her eyes were on me. They blazed. + +"'This pantomime of shadows grows involved,' I thought. But I was +experimenting with rhetoric. For the thing was absurdly simple. Hate +still animated my phantom. And this was her revenge. She was about to +give herself to the black dwarf Goliath. She was about to commit sexual +hari-kari. + +"I watched her hands remove his clothes, his red jacket, his fine shirt. +He jumped up and down like a distracted child, his own hands bewildered +with too many activities. They fondled her, they tugged at his trousers. +They became insane and flapped at his sides. She helped him, her eyes +still watching me. + +"'At last I produce a horror worthy of myself,' I thought. 'The mist +dagger was melodrama to be smiled at. But this--ah, here we have a +refinement that reduces death to a minor obscenity. She attacks me now +with a weapon worthy my indifference. It is true, my senses writhe less +frightenedly. But I, Mallare--yes, Mallare the Supreme One--honor her +assault with a shudder. + +"'Ah, who but Mallare could have invented so subtle a blasphemy, so +accomplished an enemy. It is an old theological quibble, but I +understand it now. God is the greatest atheist. He is proud of a +disbelief in Himself. + +"'Yes, this phantom is the atheism of Mallare. And it is at last a true +child. A parental pride excites me. Like Mallare, her father, she rises +above herself. I have breathed the soul of hate into her. My hatred +alive with a cleverness of its own speaks to itself. + +"'It says, 'I am the hatred of Mallare. I desire to murder him. I am his +phantom, but the suffering and insult he has heaped upon me grow +unbearable. His cruelty and coldness have filled me with fury. I would +have killed him but that would have been almost an infidelity. For his +senses have been my lovers. I remember them with tears. I decided not to +kill him because that would have meant to kill his senses. But this +other one, this Insufferable and Aloof One--this Serene One staring +amusedly at me out of His black heaven--how send my hatred against him? +Ah, I will conspire with his senses. I am no more than an idea in the +head of God. But the head of God is but an idea that encircles me. I am +a phantom within a phantom. Thus I must make myself nauseous. I must +make myself too hideous. I must make myself so monstrous that the Idea +which contains me will feel an anguish. And this anguish will be the +applause to my hate.' + +"I sat shrewdly silent, for the moment was approaching. At last I +perceived myself behind the logic of this Frankenstein. For it was I--I, +Mallare--that was attacking myself with this hatred. It was Mallare who +was arranging this little plot for himself. And why? Because then the +head of Mallare, nauseated by the vileness of the assault, would +disgorge forever the hallucination of Rita. It was an emetic Mallare had +found necessary to administer to himself. + +"Ah, my cleverness grows incredible. I am too Supreme to grasp Myself. +There are still unexplored crevices in My infinity, and out of these +continue to issue surprises that divert Me. + +"Goliath was undressed. His black body, lumped and like some mad +caricature of itself, gleamed in the light. + +"'See,' I said. 'Note this bulbous little black man. For he is a +caricature not of himself but of you. He is a rival before whom your +senses wince as before some unflattering image. Yes--the image of +Mallare stands saluting his charming chimera with an interesting +Ethiopian erection. For though they differ in many externals, Mallare +and Goliath are one. They are ornamented insulations for an identical +current. And here, throbbing under an erection is the current of Mallare +and of an infinity of Mallares. + +"'Ah, the penis of this dwarf is repellent because that which Mallare so +fondly called his own--his desires--is revealed to him as grotesquely +promiscuous. Yes, the penis is the democratic tabernacle of Life. Under +its little Moorish roof, the senses of the race kneel in common prayer. + +"'Observe it, Mallare. It is the rendezvous of expiring illusions, the +gathering place of the anonymities which utilize man, beasts and plants. +See how this curious dwarf staggers like a bewildered stranger in its +shadow. He is an outcast. He is useless. He is no longer necessary. Life +which made a pretense of him, enters its tabernacle and closes the doors +on him. Here is the great secret. Here stands the grim tyrant before +whose delicious wrath man bows himself into annihilations. + +"'Ah, what a marvelous tabernacle! It moves and Goliath follows. It +points and Goliath runs after it. An infatuated tabernacle that fancies +itself going to Heaven! It is proud. It struts. Goliath shuffles after +it like a forlorn little nigger in the wake of a circus. It leaps. And +Goliath gallops after it. Aha! he lies on his back impaled. But she!' + +"They were on the couch. She sat beside him but her eyes still sought +me. Noises issued from Goliath. He rolled on his back, kicking crooked +legs and yelping. + +"I watched her white body spread over him. Her eyes left me and my +rhetoric dwindled into a sigh. I was alone with a spectacle. Goliath, +masturbating with a phantom--but not as Mallare had done. No, not as +Mallare who had lain indifferent beside his Frankenstein. For Goliath's +arms were around her, his legs entwined her. His body, an insanity in +itself, made a mate beneath her more incredible than she. There was +silence. Then she screamed!---- + +"Yes, Mallare closed his eyes. A coldness tip-toed out of his heart. She +was laughing. Her laughter entered his ears--a noise that was like a +witch's flight of sound. But who was it laughed? Mallare, Mallare +laughed. It was his voice in the phantom that laughed at him. It was his +hallucination he had loved that now gave itself to a little monster. And +it was his hate that designed this laugh, a thing that pierced the +heaven in which he sat. Mallare closed his eyes, a God shuddering before +His own atheism. Yes, rhetoric now. It is easy to write. My words +embroider themselves. + +"But then, when the laugh struck Mallare! Ah, there was curious mutiny. +They went away. The little Mallares who worship me went away, all but +one. The dumb one. Yes, I write of him again. He came to me then and his +tears were more horrible than the scream I had heard. His weeping came +too close. His weeping grew too loud. His arms embraced me and he held +his face too close to mine. And my name rose from his lips. + +"I was alone with him and my fingers fought with his throat. This +blubberer who had followed me home in the snow, yes this insufferable +melancholiac who rained his tears into my Heaven--Mallare would have +killed him. + +"But he was too sly. He slipped away and sprawled around the room. He +beat his hands against walls and tore at his hair. I followed watching +him and coaxing him to come close once more. I smiled at him to come +near again. But no, he avoided me. He stood against the curtains facing +me and pointing his finger at me. His mouth was open but no sound came +from it. There was only the noise of my phantom laughing. + +"He stood pointing and I watched my name come like a dead shout from his +lip. His throat was alive with my name. + +"'Mallare!' it said. + +"I smiled at him. And I worshipped aloud so that he might hear. I +whispered to him to come close--this lugubrious blasphemer who wears my +name in his throat. But his face grew white. His arms dropped and he +leaned against the curtains. His eyes closed and he fell. The +Indifferent One remained. The smile of Mallare remained contemplating +the prostrate ones. + +"The couch was still alive. But it was dark. Her outline was already +disintegrating. Goliath's fingers stared from her back. + +"'The dark comedy ends,' I thought. 'My phantom dissolves in a suicidal +orgasm. And the little monster beneath her collapses amid too sudden +memories. Finis! The revenge that I so cleverly manipulated is +accomplished. And now Mallare disgorges a hallucination become too +nauseous. I have fouled this pretty one so that my senses might abandon +her. And see, they whimper under me. The dumb one lies in a corner and +even his tears are ended. And this sad eyed one, weary with intolerable +visions, and this one whose ears are filled with voices--all of them +whimper under me. But I must feel no pity for them. Mallare rides away +like a star.... + +"'And she dissolves. Vale Rita! The red and yellow dress again. Yes ... +yes--the green and orange shawl again. Put them on. Bravo Rita! Tragedy +bows in a decorative anti-climax. Little one, Mallare banishes thee from +His heaven where thou becamest too intimate. Because thou sought to +seduce His worshippers. Vale!--Mallare disgorges thee. Spit not at Me, +little one, for I am only a smile. Spit at this dumb one, this +blubberer, who has forgotten himself in a new sleep.' + + * * * * * + +"And Goliath weeps. She is gone and his madness regrets her vanishing. +He sits by day and watches out of the window. At night I have found him +staring at the couch where he lay with my shadow. He kneels beside it +with his grotesque arms flung out, embracing memories. + +"His madness flatters me. Yet it is a thing to be studied. His eyes are +insane. They roll continually in their sockets. He beats himself, +knocking his fists against his head. And I have discovered him on the +floor doubled up, his head buried in his arms. He does not hear me but +remains, while I move around, immobile as an idol. Yes, little Goliath +is mad. But he cannot recover the illusion whose memory haunts his dark +soul. He suffers. He beats his head and his tears are futile. For she +was mine. Mallare created her. Mallare destroyed her. There is a +temptation at times to return her--not to Mallare but to this poor +dwarf who expires under his grief. + +"I am tempted by his madness. Goliath has found no God in his black +heaven. I would be his God and create for him as I may for Myself. But I +am wary of such altruism. He is still My servant and looks after Me. But +My smile watches him with caution. His eyes roll too much. + +"Since I rid myself of her, there has been no mutiny. I sit and +contemplate problems that have grown too simple for me. And when I am +bored with studying Goliath's madness, I divert myself with my friend, +the lodge brother. A baffling imbecile who withholds himself slyly. I +have not yet come to an understanding with him. There are too few facts +to go on. He is silent. He weeps. My name sleeps forever on his lips. +And once he babbled to me of blood on my hands. These are the only +realities that form a key to him. + +"His presence remains a discomfort. We sit and stare at each other. And +I talk quietly to him. + +"'You are an inconsistent ass,' I say. 'You were first an obvious +pathologic symptom--an illusory conscience born to adorn the grief of my +senses that fancied they had murdered Rita, the phantom. But then when +you found her alive, what did you do? Did you vanish as, in all logic, +you should? For Rita was not murdered and therefore where the necessity +of a conscience to celebrate her crime? + +"'But you remained and grew more dolorous. Then you are something else. +I suspect you of being the adroit ambassador the madmen have sent into +my heaven to plead their cause. Yet why do you not plead? As an +ambassador you are a tongue-tied, sniveling idiot. Therefore again, you +escape logic. And without logic my madness becomes slyly +incomprehensible to me. + +"'We watch each other like two careful wrestlers, eh? But what hold do +you want? Tell me and I will let you try your strength. No--tears, +nothing else. You weep, weep until the sight of you is an impossible +ennui. + +"'Ah, perhaps you are a memory of Mallare. Something forgotten. Logic +approaches you as I think. Something forgotten. And you are overcome at +my infidelity. Like Goliath you mourn a vanished one. But there is this +difference. Whereas Goliath is real and the object of his mourning is a +phantom--you and not I are the phantom. Yes, a phantom mourns me. But +speak then. I have no objection to memory. Let me hear what this is all +about and I will admit what you say. I will admit it all beforehand. + +"'But no. You expect something else. You expect Mallare to fall at your +feet and embrace you. I can see that in your eyes--a monotonous +expectation that grows ludicrous. Yes, your tears grow ludicrous. I +tolerate you for only one purpose. You are a problem that diverts me. +For if I desired I could do with you as I did with Rita. There are ways +to make you too nauseous. + +"'Yes, I might invent another hate for myself. My hands might tear you +as they tore her. And then, filled with a fury against me, you too +might turn to Goliath. He is still mad, my dwarf, and susceptible to the +phantoms I send him. Do you want to go to him as she did? Aha! You +wince. Remember then that Mallare has it in his power to send you to his +dwarf, to make you take her place over his terrible body. And Mallare +will do this if you annoy him too much. And then, sickened with you as +he was with her, he will disgorge another shadow. Let us be frank about +this. I warn you.' + +"Thus I sit and talk quietly to this weeping one. And when I stop I +watch his lips move with my name. + +"'Mallare,' they say. + +"This is his only answer to my overtures. But I will win him over. He +will come close to my smile and kneel finally before me. He will confess +who he is and what my name means. + +"I grow tired. Goliath stands by his shrine and weeps. He waits beside a +couch as if it were another Mallare able to give birth to a phantom. +Poor dwarf, unlike Mallare he has not learned that suffering is an +illusion, that couches and Medusas are illusions. Unlike Mallare there +is no smile hanging its star above him. + +"Sleep comes. A forgotten world babbles with shadows outside my windows. +It is time to say goodnight to my friend, the lodge brother. Turn your +tears to the cold moon, my friend. Mallare goes away. Far away into a +house where he is alone." + + + + +[Illustration: Ninth Drawing] + + + + +[IX] + + +_The last entry in the Journal of Mallare--undated._ + +"Talk to me, Mallare. Tell me. Where am I? He grows larger, this dumb +one. He moves away, growing larger. He defies distance. He grows too +large to see. But his tears remain. + +"Whisper to me, Mallare. He vanishes and I must sneak after him. Call me +back. He is strange. His darkness lures me out of my heaven. A little +whisper will save me. You will say to me, 'Here is God.' I will come +back. + +"My words tire of him. He will not listen. His tears! dear God, are You +so human that they silence You? He has come into my loneliness. And +there is no use debating with him any longer. Since he followed me home +in the snow his weeping has never wavered. I must talk not to him but to +Mallare. I must debate with Mallare. But where is he, this Supreme One? +Mallare, where art thou? + +"Yes, my madness becomes an increasing novelty. I remain. But I grow +smaller. I am too small. Where is my smile? It hides from me. But his +tears fall. This dumb one knows how to weep. Alas, I drown. + +"Come to my side. I will whisper. I am in love. Yes, do not be +astonished. I am in love with her. You recall her? She was like a +curtain fluttering before the door of enchantments. Her breasts were +like little blind faces raised in prayer. Yes, Rita, my radiant one. The +phantom I constructed. The Phoenix that arose in my soul. And that I +slew again. I am in love. But my magic no longer works. She does not +return. + +"I will whisper. I kneel with Goliath beside the couch. Ah, Mallare, +Mallare--I am mad with love. I weep and beat my head. And this other one +calls me away. His shape grows larger and his darkness lifts me toward +it. He pulls me from the couch. Talk to me, Mallare. I am mad, but talk +to me and I will understand. Dear, shining Mallare ... Tell me 'no' and +I will break my love. I will put my fist through the window out of which +I watch for her. And it will be finished. + +"But I weep. My eyes have caught his trick. I weep for her. Do you +understand this? My beautiful one whom I disgorged. Yes, Rita. I die +with love of her. I kneel by the bed that knew her. Whisper back to me, +Mallare, that I am mad. And I will laugh. But without you I grow too +small to laugh. + +"There is pain in the shadows. I ask, where am I? Go way, then, Mallare. +Leave me. I persist without Mallare. I remain. Let me dissolve into +this. Let me sprawl before the door of enchantments. It is illusion. +Let it be. She will come out. Rita, my vanished one, come back to me. +It is I who ask. Not the Cold One, not the Indifferent One, not Mallare. +But I ... I. + +"I will hold you in my arms. I will feed your mist with kisses. My body +will warm you. I will be kind. I am not Mallare. He is gone. He hides. +He will not come back. I will kneel before the door that sings with you. +I am mad with love. See, Rita, I am like Goliath. My eyes roll. I am mad +and you may come to me without fear. + +"Windows break in me again. I remember this from long ago. Hey, you +blubbering one! Do you want me! Hey, you brother sniveler, come back! I +laugh. Do you understand this? A laughter without definitions. Ah, +forgive me. You sat and wept and I scolded. Come back and sit again. I +will fall at your feet. Your eyes asked that. But now--where are your +feet? There is no shape. How am I to know where? Come back. Here, sit in +this chair beside me. God! In silence, I utter my name. But it is a +name that has flown away, flown away. + +"Hey, you, bring me my name. The little name, the one that made a +pantomime on your lips. The one that stared at me with letters. Bring me +my name, I will understand its meaning. My other name has flown away. +Listen. Let me whisper. Bring it to me and I will place it like a gate +before the door of enchantments. I will kneel to it. Windows break in my +head. Mallare ... are you Mallare? No, you are this. You are a babble of +words that stands on its nose. + +"Laugh at me, Mallare. Let me hear your laugh far away. Or I go. Listen, +Mallare. I turn my back on this darkness. I do not kneel at empty +couches. No. I wait for you. You were my God. You, the One who +contemplated. Yes, my arms are out to You. Come ... a whisper out of +silences. Hey, Mallare. I dissolve. I become a little phantom. A useless +little phantom. I drift like Rita. And they attack me. Hands, voices and +trembling ones. They are brave because it is dark. Your worshippers, +Mallare, they turn on me. They break windows. Pity me. This is the +cross. + +[Hebrew: Eli, eli, lama azavtani?] + + + + +[Illustration: Tenth Drawing] + + + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | Transcriber's Note | + | | + | Details of minor typographical corrections are provided in | + | the source of the associated html version. | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fantazius Mallare, by Ben Hecht + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FANTAZIUS MALLARE *** + +***** This file should be named 27261-8.txt or 27261-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/2/6/27261/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Wilson and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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